Ash Wednesday
by chai4anne
Summary: Matt doesn't know why things seem strained between him and his C.o.S., so Helen takes Donna to Camp David and tries to get her to talk about Josh.
1. Chapter 1

Ash Wednesday

By Chai

Author's Notes: This one's a bit different from anything else I've written, because it's actually fanfic for fanfic: it was posted on JDFF in January 2007 as a response to the "Fantasy Virtual Season Eight" that was being written collaboratively and posted on JDFF by a number of writers after the show wrapped up. I'd been invited to join that group when it started, but had had to decline because of other commitments, not to mention serious doubts that I was in any way capable of writing to deadlines, or to fit in with other people's storylines or interpretations of the characters.

But of course I read the "Fantasy Season 8" stories with interest, and after the episodes involving Josh trying to get Matt to evacuate the area around a Pacific coast volcano, and failing because Matt didn't trust Josh's information, which came through Toby, I couldn't resist the temptation to write this and post it in response, just as if I'd been following a real Season 8 on TV.

So you should think of this as a post-ep for Jo March's "The Canary in the Coal Mine," Mdrgrl's "Layers Upon Lahars," and Jen Wilson's "Consequences." You can find those stories on JDFF, where I believe their numbers are listed in the "Files" section. Please bear in mind that I wasn't writing as a member of the group, and so my story has no claim to a proper place in their series, and doesn't actually fit in with any of the stories that follow Jen's "Consequences," though I tried to make it work with the ones that had come before.

My apologies again to Jo, Mdrgrl and Jen for taking the liberty of borrowing their stories to play with like this, and my thanks to them and to the other FVS8 writers for the inspiration and the fun. More thanks are due to Aim, Caz and Mistletoe for taking the time to read this and make suggestions.

And so, in the hopes that Jo, Mdrgrl and Jen won't mind my quoting from their stories here, I'll begin as both the show and the FVS8 episodes did, with a series of snippets from "Previously on the West Wing" (Fantasy Virtual Season 8):

_"Under no circumstances are you to ever discuss_ _anything that happens in this building with Toby_ _Ziegler," Santos finally said. "If I even suspect_ _that's happening, you're out of here. You can pass_ _that message on to Sam Seaborn, to Donna, to anyone_ _here who knows Ziegler."_

_"Yes, sir."_

_"Other than that, the government has no right to tell_ _you how to pick your friends. Although I would prefer_ _it if your friendship didn't become public knowledge,_ _at least until Baker is confirmed." _

_With that, the_ _President stood up and headed for the Oval Office. _

_"By the way," he added, "if I find out you've been_ _keeping any other information from me, you'll be out_ _of this building in record time."_ _(From "The Canary in the Coal Mine," by Jo March)_

oooooo

_Everyone stood, thanking the President and wishing him a good night._

_"Josh?" he called._

_He paused in front of the door leading to his office. "Yes, sir?"_

_"About earlier..." He took a step closer to his Chief of Staff. "I_  
_came down on you pretty hard."_

_Josh gulped. He kept his eyes trained on the President._

_"I don't think there will ever be a time when I trust Toby Ziegler,"_  
_Santos began. "But I do trust you."_

_Josh stood a little taller._

_"I can't imagine anyone serving as my Chief of Staff more effectively_  
_than you." The President looked him square in the eye. "I wanted you_  
_to know that."_

_"Thank you, sir." He gave him a tight lipped smile._

_Santos walked behind his desk and picked up his suit jacket. "It's_  
_late. You should go home."_

_"Yes, sir." Josh walked through the connecting door and closed it._  
_He leaned against it, and sighed._

_(From "Layers Upon Lahars," by Mdrgrl)_

oooooo

_Something caught his eye and he looked over and __saw a woman sitting in the corner of the tent crying quietly._

_A man was talking to her, and the President found himself watching as the woman clutched a tissue in her hand and nodded at whatever the man was saying._

_"Is that woman ok?" he asked Jeff softly as they approached Sam and_  
_Lester._

_"Is that woman ok?" _

_Jeff looked over at the woman for several seconds before answering  
very softly. "Her two year-old daughter inhaled ash. She died  
yesterday afternoon. That's one of our trauma specialists with her."_

_The small group of people were stunned into silence at the site_  
_director's words. The president looked down at the ground and closed_  
_his eyes for several long moments before looking at the grief-_  
_stricken woman again. He thought he might be sick, watching the_  
_woman sobbing over her daughter. Immediately and not voluntarily, he_  
_pictured Helen sitting there sobbing over Miranda._

_"Mr. President," Sam said softly. "Maybe we should give her some_  
_privacy."_

_He shook his head but didn't take his eyes off the woman. That pain_  
_in her face; he'd caused that. He'd done that to her. "I have to go_  
_over there."_

_Sam looked at Lester and shook his head. "Mr. President…"_

_"I ha…" his voice was choked and he stopped to take a deep_  
_breath. "I have to apologize."_

_"Sir," Lester said. "That's not your place."_

_The president's head shot to Lester. "Of course it's my place. It's_  
_my fault."_

_"Mr. President," Sam said gently. "If you go over there and that_  
_woman blames you…"_

_"What?" the president snapped. "It'll look bad I don't care. I… she_  
_deserves... something. My apology at the very least." It wouldn't be_  
_enough; it wouldn't ever be enough, but she deserved it nonetheless._

_"And if she screams? Calls you a murderer?" Sam said a bit more_  
_sternly._

_"Then she screams and calls me a murderer."_

_"And if she hits you? And the secret service pulls her off you and_  
_shoves her face into the ground and arrests her?"_

_The president shook his head. "She needs…"_

_"You. You need to apologize. She needs to be left alone to grieve in_  
_peace without having to face anyone who's going to cause her more_  
_pain. Whose needs are more important right now, sir?"_

_(From "Consequences" by Jen Wilson.)_

oooooo

Ash Wednesday

Matthew Santos stood in front of the long French doors at the end of the Oval Office, looking out at the colonnade and the garden beyond. The sky was grey and heavy with clouds; there was a chill in the air that he could feel through the panes of glass, even with the doors closed. Some thin, yellow stalks of forsythia were doing their best to brighten the scene, and a few crocuses and daffodils were scattered across the lawn, but otherwise Washington's famous floral show was nowhere to be seen. And it was almost Easter. Spring was late that year, thanks in part, at least, to the eruption of Mt. St. Helen's a couple of weeks ago, bringing clouds of ash that had darkened the sky and led, according to the guys at the National Weather Bureau, to all the rain they'd been having all across the country ever since. Days and days and days of it. The cherry blossoms were due to put in an appearance, but if they ever did manage to struggle out of their buds they were going to be blown from their branches and battered to the ground by the driving rain before the annual festival could ever get underway. The rain seemed to have paused for the moment, but from the look of the sky, there would be more that afternoon. The weather was getting on people's nerves; everyone seemed unsettled, edgy, down—Matt himself most of all. He felt personally responsible. Which was ridiculous, he knew: he didn't make the weather. He hadn't made that volcano erupt. He had just . . . .

"Mr. President?"

Matt shook his head and looked away from the scene outside to his Chief of Staff, who was walking into his office with a handful of files. There was a tightness in Josh's face that Matt had been aware of for quite a while now—for the past two weeks, in fact. It bothered him, but he didn't know what to do about it.

"Yes, Josh?"

Matt made an effort to put his depression aside and try to sound jovial, welcoming. As efforts like that usually do, it came out sounding false. Matt saw Josh Lyman's face tighten a little more, the wariness in his eyes increase.

"We need to look at these files on the education bill, sir."

"Of course." Matt took a deep breath. "Josh—"

"Yes, sir?"

Matt hesitated. This sort of thing wasn't his strong suit at all.

"Is everything okay?"

Josh eyed him strangely.

"I haven't heard anything about Kazakhstan since your briefing this morning, sir, but as far as I know there haven't been any changes. Your numbers have been going up steadily since the Vice President was confirmed. We're facing some challenges on the education bill, but we're going to get it. We need to discuss our response to Kervil, Samson, and Dean; that's what I've got here."

Matt dropped his eyes from his C.o.S.'s face to the folder in his hand. That wasn't what he'd meant, but he hadn't liked asking the question in the first place. This sort of thing made him feel like those parachute exercises where you were supposed to be doing a jump over enemy territory in thick fog with no idea what was waiting down below. Freefall in thick, cold, fog, icy little water particles clustered around bits of dust, bits of ash . . . .

"Right," he said, sighing and taking the folder from Josh's hand. But all the while they were talking, he was aware at the edges of his thought of the tautness in the other man's face and in his voice. It felt like an accusation. A hesitation, anyway, an unvoiced doubt of Matt's ability to do the job Josh had told him he should do. It irritated and frustrated him, making him feel even more tense than he did already. Of course he could do this job. If he hadn't believed that, he wouldn't have taken Josh up on his wild proposal two Christmases ago. But if Josh had stopped believing it. . . . He brushed the thought away. He couldn't afford to go there, couldn't afford to be distracted by thoughts like that: the only way to do this job was just to do it. He couldn't afford to worry about what his Chief of Staff was or wasn't thinking about him, what Josh Lyman might or might not do.

But later that evening, when he was sitting with Helen after the children were in bed, he found himself thinking about his Chief of Staff again. He didn't even realize he was doing it until he heard Helen's voice saying,

"I've asked you the same question three times now, Matt—what's wrong?"

He looked up at her, surprised.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Were you talking to me?"

"Yes, Matthew," she answered, with exaggerated patience. "Strange though it might seem, I was talking to you. For the last five minutes or so, but you're obviously somewhere else tonight. What's wrong? I thought we were actually crisis-free for the moment, and could have a nice evening together." There was a bit of an edge to her voice. Matt winced inside, and bit his lip.

"I'm sorry," he said again. "You're right, that's what we should be doing. Come here and tell me what you were talking about again."

Helen walked over to the sofa he was sitting on and sat down beside him.

"What's wrong?" she asked again, her voice a little softer this time. "Something's bothering you. Something's been bothering you for days now. You've been off in your own thoughts every evening. And I know you're not sleeping very well."

Matt looked sideways at her. Her makeup had worn off hours ago; she was wearing track pants and an old sweatshirt that had been pink once but was more grey than anything else now. Her hair was tucked behind her ears, mussy and a little frizzy at the end of the day, but it looked like gold and shimmered like spun silk in the lamplight. She took his breath away; she always did. He didn't know what he'd do if she wasn't here for him. And she hadn't wanted this; he knew she still didn't want it, was just putting up with it because he hadn't left her any real choice. He couldn't come whining to her now about the consequences of his decisions. But she wasn't going to take silence for an answer, either. He sighed and put his arm around her shoulders.

"I'm worried about Josh," he admitted. That was part of it, the least difficult part to talk about, though even this wasn't something he found easy to admit to, or put into words.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know, exactly," Matt answered slowly. "But there's something, I can tell. He's been acting differently around me for the past couple of weeks: tense, distant. He's angry with me, I suppose."

"Angry? With you? Why would Josh be angry with you?"

"For not listening to him, I guess, about Kaplan and the volcano. And maybe for telling him off the way I did about Toby Ziegler."

"I thought you'd apologized."

"I did. I told him I trust him, that I want him to go on as my C.o.S., I think he's the best man for the job. And he is. I can't think of anyone else who could do this as well as he can. I'd be pretty lost if he quit right now, Helen. I can't afford it; I don't know what I'd do."

There it was, the thought he hadn't been able to push away: what he would do if Josh decided he'd made the wrong choice and couldn't work for Matt anymore. If he quit. Matt had come down pretty heavily on him over that business with Toby Ziegler, but in spite of what he'd said, he'd realized over the past couple of weeks that there simply wasn't anyone else he could trust to guide him through the byways and pitfalls of this impossible job: not now, certainly, not yet. There'd be plenty of candidates for the position, of course, many of them older and more experienced in certain ways than Josh was, but Josh was the only one with seven years in the White House as Leo McGarry's right-hand-man, the only one who'd spent seven years negotiating for the executive branch with the legislative one, the only one who'd put in a decade and a half working the floors of the House and the Senate before that, the only one with the political brilliance to have been catapulted into a job like White House Deputy Chief of Staff at the age of—what? thirty-seven? thirty-eight? A position most men would count themselves lucky to get twenty years later, and would consider their crowning achievement, the capstone of their careers. And now, in his mid-forties, Josh was the President's Chief of Staff, and the only man Matt—whose own meteoric rise still left him feeling stunned and staggering—could picture in that job. Leo had told him Josh was the right man for it, and Matt, for all his doubts and hesitations, had believed him. He still believed him. There was nobody else who could do the job; nobody else Matt wanted to do it. . . .

"Why would he quit?"

"If he's angry enough, or fed up enough, he might. That was quite the public-relations disaster I created there, on top of all the other kinds of disaster that happened that day. And I spoke to him pretty harshly before that."

"Matt, I've never liked Josh much, you know that, but I'll say this for him—he's a professional. He takes his job seriously; you know he does. He's got to be used to dealing with public-relations problems: look at what happened with President Bartlet when the story about his MS came out, and how they turned that around. Josh didn't quit then; I don't know why he'd quit now. I'm sure it's not the first time he's been told off, or hasn't been listened to. If he's angry, he'll get over it. You've apologized; that should be an end of it. Let it go."

"I know," Matt said, "I know. I've been telling myself that all day, all week, ever since—ever since that eruption, really. It's just that there's something wrong. I can tell. He seems—closed-off, I guess, now. Unreachable. He's polite, and professional, and he's doing his job and doing it well. But I need more than that from him, Helen. I'm just realizing how much I need from the person in that office. Leo McGarry was Jed Bartlet's best friend; Bartlet could lean on him in ways I can't with Josh, because he knew him, he trusted him."

"I thought you'd told Josh you trusted him."

"I do. I do trust him. I think."

"You 'think'?"

"I wish I knew him better, Helen. It's one thing to trust somebody because you know his record and the people who recommended him, and another to trust him because you know_ him_. I don't have a friend like Leo McGarry who could do this; I wish I did, but I don't. There isn't anyone else I'd rather have beside me while I do this than Josh. But I don't know who he really is. And I'm not sure he knows who I really am, either."

Helen sighed. She wanted to ask Matt why he hadn't thought about this months ago and done something about it then, before taking office, but she knew that was pointless. Men never saw the importance of personal relations the way women did. That Matt was seeing it at all, now, was something of a miracle, but then Matt was really a highly intelligent man, though his straightforwardness and single-mindedness sometimes seemed to blind him to things that, to her, were quite obvious.

"Then you'll have to get to know him better, Matt, that's all."

"I thought I would. I thought I was. During the transition, after he took that vacation, he seemed like a different man. More relaxed, more open, smiling, talking about things besides the job—about restaurants he wanted to take Donna to, concerts he was getting tickets to go to with Donna, pictures of Donna and the places they went to that week they went off together. Do you know, before that, I'd thought he might be gay?"

"I'd wondered about that, too. I knew he'd dated Amy Gardner, but . . . ."

"You thought she was his beard."

"I thought they were each others' beards. But it turned out it was Donna he wanted all that time."

"I really felt like I was starting to know him, to understand what made him tick."

"And don't you still? He's still with Donna; that hasn't changed."

"No, but he's changed, and I don't know why."

"Have you asked him?"

"I—" Matt sighed. Helen raised an eyebrow. He moved his arm out from behind her shoulders and shifted his position on the couch, trying to get comfortable. He ended up bent over, his head in his hands, running his fingers through his hair.

"Have you asked him, Matt?"

"Yeah," Matt said, and then quickly, "or no." He laughed, then, and shook his head. "I've tried to get it out of him, Helen but—I can't just ask Josh Lyman outright if he's upset with me, it's impossible. I'd sound like some junior-high-school girl who's had a spat with her friend, not the President, the Commander in Chief! But I can feel the tension radiating off him; I know something's wrong. Something's gotten to him, something that's affecting the way he acts around me, and until I know what it is, I won't know where I am with him."

Helen sighed again. "Matt, you _are _the President. Josh works for you. If his attitude is bothering you, you just have to tell him. It's up to him to change it, to be the way you need him to be."

"It's not that simple, Helen. I need him in that job. I'm only just realizing how much I need him in that job. I can't afford to do something that might make things worse. I need to find a way to deal with this without pushing Josh too far. I can't have him quit on me, Helen; I just can't."

He heard his own voice letting Josh know the circumstances under which Matt wouldn't just accept his resignation but would kick him out the door, and winced. But he'd had to say that; he'd had to. He couldn't have Josh talking about White House business with Toby Ziegler. Toby Ziegler . . . .

"Maybe it has nothing to do with you, Matt. Josh has never been the most open guy in the world, has he? Maybe something's wrong at home, or with his family."

"Does Donna seem worried about anything?"

Helen thought for a minute, her brow creasing.

"I hadn't thought about it before, Matt, but you know, she might be. She's been quieter lately, a bit distant. Not a lot. She was joking and laughing with Annabeth and me just this morning. But later, at the end of the day, she did seem—preoccupied. She's seemed that way quite often recently."

"Can you try to find out what's going on?"

"She might not want to tell me, you know, Matt. She's a private sort of person; I wouldn't want to pry."

"But you'll try?"

Helen sighed. This could be awkward. But still, if Matt was really worried . . . .

"I'll try. And now come over here and let me give you a backrub; you need to relax and forget about all this nonsense for a while."

"Mmmmmm."

"Mmmmmm?"

"Mmmmmm. Ohhhhhh. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm."

"You like that, don't you?"

"You know I do, you vixen. You're trying to get out of giving me that backrub, aren't you?"

"Wouldn't you rather have this instead?"

"Mmmmmmm. Ohhhhhh. Mmmmmmhmmmmm . . . ."

Their White House bed was too strong to break. For an hour, Matt was almost able to forget about Josh Lyman, about volcanoes, about being President of the United States. Afterwards, sweaty and exhausted, he fell asleep with Helen in his arms. But in the middle of the night he woke again. After lying sleepless for a while he slipped out of bed, dressed himself in his bathrobe and boxers, and made his way down the hall to the rooms where Peter and Miranda slept. Peter had kicked the covers off, as usual; Matt pulled them back on again, tousled the boy's hair, kissed his cheek. Miranda was lying huddled around her beloved old stuffed bear, the tattered baby blanket she still slept with wrapped around her neck and clutched in her hand. She slept that way, she'd told them once, in case of fire: if she had to leave her bedroom quickly, she'd still have Blankie and Raggedy Old Pooh safe with her. Matt straightened the covers around her, kissed her, stroked her hair. He stood beside her a long time, watching her chest moving up and down in the light from the open door and the hall.

He could hear the rain starting up outside again, pattering against the windows, running down the glass. Little drops of ash and water. He thought about the clouds of it, moving overhead. And he thought about that Wednesday morning a month ago when he had knelt before the priest in church and prayed, as he always did now, for the wisdom and humility and courage to lead his country well. About the way the priest had dedicated the mass for him, and led the congregation in prayers asking for the guidance and protection of all the saints for their new President as he carried out the awesome responsibilities with which he had been entrusted by God Himself. About the way the music had soared, and the sudden, unexpected sense of possibility and conviction that had surged through him as the priest's thumb moved across his forehead in that crumbling, pasty mix of oil and ash.

oooooo

"Josh," Donna said sleepily, from the door to the living room, "it's after eleven. Come to bed."

Josh looked up from the papers he had spread out over the coffee-table, and blinked. "It's eleven o'clock already?" he asked.

"It's ten after eleven, actually." Donna's voice was patient. She knew she was going to win this one; they had an agreement, and so far he'd been good about it. She was also wearing her blue silk bathrobe, which was open down the front, and nothing else.

"You let me miss ten minutes?" Josh put the papers he was holding down, and stood up. He was moving stiffly; she saw him wince a little. He'd been sitting in the same place, working, since they'd finished dinner.

"I was being generous."

"You were being cruel."

"I was being thoughtful. You seemed so preoccupied; you haven't moved out of that seat for hours. I didn't want to interrupt you if you just needed a little more time."

Josh looked back at the coffeetable and shook his head.

"I need a lot more time," he said, rubbing a hand through his hair. "I need another lifetime to deal with all this. But," and he looked back at her and quirked the corner of his mouth up in a smile, "I need time with you more."

Donna felt her heart melt. Even after four months, she wasn't really used to being like this with Josh yet. To Josh being like this with her. She smiled, tenderly.

"Come on, then. You've missed ten minutes already."

"I'll have to do more to make up for them, then."

"You did quite a lot last night."

"I'll do more tonight. I'll work faster, harder—"

"Faster isn't necessarily better, Josh—or harder."

"I'll make it better. You'll see."

It certainly wasn't worse. There were advantages, Donna sometimes thought, to having an overachieving workaholic as your lover, advantages that didn't exactly outweigh the disadvantages, but unquestionably helped to compensate for them. An hour later she was thoroughly sated, and Josh was asleep in her arms. If she wanted him to, he'd usually make the effort to stay awake and talk to her, but tonight she hadn't even tried for that. He needed the rest, and she needed to see him get it. She knew it wouldn't last long.

It didn't. Twice in the next two hours she woke to feel him turning restlessly beside her; once she heard him muttering something in his sleep. About three in the morning she woke again to find the room quiet—too quiet. She felt beside her: the bed was empty, he was gone. It had been the same last night, and the night before that, and the night before that—the same for the past two weeks, since the eruption. Sometimes she didn't do anything, and tried to go back to sleep. Sometimes she got up and went to talk to him. Tonight she got up. He was in the living room, not working at the stack of papers on the coffee-table but standing in the window, looking out. The streetlight outside was filling the night with a pale grey light that made the houses look, Donna thought, as if they were covered with something soft and dusty, like ash. She crossed the room and put a hand on his back.

"I'm sorry," he said, quietly. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"I know," she said, rubbing his back gently. "It's okay."

He hunched his shoulders a little, and she started to rub them, trying to work the tension she could feel in his muscles out of them.

"It's not your fault, Josh."

"I know."

She wasn't sure whether that was the truth or not, but she knew it was all she was going to get from him. After a while, Josh followed her back to bed. After a while, he fell asleep again. After a while, she did too.

oooooo


	2. Chapter 2

"Donna," Helen said to her Chief of Staff when they were finishing up her briefing the next morning, "you seem tired. Is everything all right?"

The younger woman lifted her eyes from the papers she'd been sifting through; she looked startled.

"I'm fine, ma'am," she said.

"Please don't call me ma'am," Helen asked, plaintively, for what felt like the five-hundred-and-fifty-five-thousandth time. They were alone, Annabeth having left a few minutes before. Donna blushed a little.

"I'm sorry," she said. "It's hard to remember."

"It shouldn't be; I've asked you often enough. But really, Donna, you're sure everything is all right? With you? With—" Helen hesitated for a fraction of a second, aware of how nosy her question was going to sound—"With Josh?"

Donna didn't blush this time. The little bit of color that had just washed over her face seeped out of it, leaving her fair skin even paler than usual.

"We're fine," she said. "I'm fine. Josh is—fine."

Helen bit her lip. This was going to be every bit as difficult as she'd thought it would be. But she'd promised Matt she'd try, and really, she thought he needed her to. He'd only slept a couple of hours last night; she'd heard him get out of bed at two or three in the morning, and he hadn't come back. He'd looked like hell at breakfast. If Josh's problems were making Matt lose sleep, they weren't Josh's private business any more.

"Donna," she said, taking the bull by the horns, "Matt's worried about Josh."

"The President is worried about Josh?" Donna looked astounded.

"Yes. He thinks something's wrong. It's bothering him, so I said I'd talk to you about it."

"Why does the President think anything's the matter with Josh?" Donna asked. Her eyes had shifted away from Helen's; she seemed to be finding something very interesting to look at on the bookcase just behind the First Lady's right shoulder. She shifted a little in her chair, and fidgeted with the papers on her lap.

"He thinks," Helen said bluntly, "that Josh is upset about something. That he's angry. With him."

"With the President?" Donna flicked her eyes back to Helen's face, meeting hers. Donna's were wide with what looked like surprise. The papers she was holding fluttered a little.

"With the President. Donna, I know Matt and Josh argued about . Helens, about taking Dr. Kaplan's advice. I know Matt probably said some pretty harsh things; he told me he did, actually. But I know he's apologized to Josh. If Josh is still angry about that . . . ."

"Oh," Donna said, dropping the papers in her lap. "Oh, no. He isn't. He wouldn't be."

"Really? Are you sure?"

"Really, ma'am—Mrs. Santos," she corrected herself, "Josh wouldn't be angry with the President. Not the President. His job is to support your husband; I know that's all he's thinking about, all he's trying to do."

Helen dropped her eyes. There were so many things this could be about: personal things, private things. The last thing she wanted was to intrude, especially when Josh's private life was also Donna's private life. But she remembered the way Matt had looked at breakfast, and lifted her eyes to her Chief of Staff's again.

"Is there something else wrong, then, Donna? Because Matt says he feels a difference in the way Josh is acting around him, and it's troubling him."

Donna hesitated. She looked down at her hands. Then she looked back at Helen. "It's okay," she said, firmly. "He's—there's nothing the President or you have to worry about. We're okay."

Helen looked at her C.o.S. for a long moment, weighing her options. She had Plan B ready; she'd come up with it last night. She never fell asleep after sex the way Matt did; after getting up to deal with the mess, she was usually wide awake for at least another hour.

"Well, that's good," she said brightly. "I'll tell Matt; he'll be relieved, I'm sure. Now, tell me, Donna—I've been meaning to ask you—do you have any plans for the weekend yet?"

Donna looked surprised.

"No," she said. "No, I don't. Josh will be working on Saturday; I've just been planning to do some errands and get some stuff done at home. Is there something you want me to do?"

"If you really don't have other plans, then yes, there is. I've been thinking I'd like to take the children and go up to Camp David tomorrow night or Friday. Their school has a Staff Development day on Friday, so they'll be home. I hadn't planned anything, with their Easter break coming up so soon, but I'm really feeling a need to get away. I've been thinking it would be good for all of us to get out of the city, see something different, go for some walks and get some fresh air. Matt will be staying here, of course, though he might come up Saturday night if he can get away. I can go on my own, but I was wondering if you'd come with me. I'd enjoy having some company that wasn't wearing a gun." She smiled. Donna smiled back, a warm, genuine smile that made Helen relax a little.

"Why, of course," she said. "I'd love to. It's very nice of you to ask me, ma—Mrs. Santos."

"That's wonderful," Helen said, cheerfully. "Thank you! It will be chilly, but this rain is supposed to clear up before Friday, or I wouldn't bother going. Do you like to hike? I've been told there are some beautiful trails on the property. I've only been up that time the Bartlets asked us, after Christmas, and everything was covered in snow then, but the ground should be clear now. And if it's really cold we can come back and warm up by the fire."

"That sounds great," Donna said. "I'll bring my hiking boots then, and some long underwear."

"That's a good idea," Helen said. "I don't have any, I'm afraid; I'll just have to walk fast."

"I think you do, actually," Donna said, smiling a little to herself at the idea of knowing the contents of another woman's wardrobe better than their owner did. "I remember Felicity ordering you a stack of things from L.L. Bean's just for Camp David." Felicity was the fashion consultant Donna had brought in to help the First Lady with her wardrobe. After Texas, she remembered the consultant saying, Helen would need plenty of warm things for winters in Washington and weekends in the mountains. It had amused Donna, who still found winters here mild compared to the ones she'd grown up with in Wisconsin, but she'd agreed. Helen herself had been so busy with Peter and Miranda that Donna doubted she'd remembered the conversation half an hour after having it; she didn't have much interest in clothes at the best of times, and helping two small children through the challenges of leaving their old home and friends and school and adapting to new ones, while being followed everywhere by men with guns under their suit jackets and hordes of press people waving cameras and tape recorders, had been a task that had, not surprisingly, absorbed most of their mother's attention until quite recently.

"Goodness," Helen said. "I had no idea. I knew the children had some, but . . . ." She smiled, and shook her head. "I'm so glad you can come, Donna. It will be much more fun with you than it would be on my own."

"Thank you!" Donna said, reminding herself not to add "ma'am." "I'll enjoy it, I know. I've only been a couple of times, but it was lovely. It's really beautiful up there."

Helen smiled, but thought, not for the first time, how strange it was to have two homes that everyone around her knew better than she did. But Donna wouldn't always have been so familiar with them, or Josh, either. She wondered, not for the first time, what these people would have been like eight years ago, when they were as new to this life as she was. Donna had mentioned a few things about her experiences then, but really, Helen thought, she didn't know her Chief of Staff much better than Matt knew his. And she needed to, as much as Matt needed to know Josh, if they were going to work together effectively for the next few years. It was a good idea, this weekend together—it could only make things better for all of them. She still felt a little uncomfortable about it, though, which was probably why she found herself asking suddenly,

"Josh won't mind your going?"

Donna's smile slipped a little.

"He'll manage," she said, trying to make her voice sound light. It was a good effort, but Helen could see her making it. So Matt was right; there was something wrong—and it was something with Josh, not Donna, who had seemed quite happy until she'd been reminded about him.

"It will be an incentive to him to get Matt through his business and up there by Saturday night," Helen said, working not to let her own voice show that she'd noticed the change in Donna's. "I'll tell the staff to make up one of the private cabins for you two for when he comes. But I'd like you to stay in the main lodge with the children and me before that; it would be cozier. Could you get away Thursday night?"

"I—I suppose so. I knew about the Staff Development day, so you don't have anything on your schedule Thursday night or Friday. I—I guess—if you need me to—I could."

Helen winced at the reluctance in Donna's voice. She had to do this, though, she told herself; it was in a good cause. Donna might miss Josh, and Josh might miss his girlfriend, but surely they'd both be better off losing a couple of nights together than they would be if Josh lost his job. Not that he was in any danger of losing it if he didn't choose to, but still, if they could just get this thing that was bothering him sorted out, it would be better for all of them, not just for Matt. Though what was better for Matt was really the most important thing, now that he was President. If she could just spend some time alone with Donna, she was sure she could find out what Matt wanted to know. But perhaps two nights wasn't really necessary for that . . . .

"Or why don't we go up Friday morning?" she said, brightly. "It would give you more time to get ready, and really, it would probably be best for the children and me too."

There was no mistaking the relief on Donna's face.

"That would be easier," she said, her smile genuine this time. "I'll tell Josh he has to get the President finished by Saturday night if he wants to see me then."

Her eyes were bright as she talked about how to rearrange Friday's light schedule, and what time she would meet Helen and Peter and Miranda at the Residence. One night away didn't worry her too much, evidently; two did. That was interesting. But Donna and Josh were still quite newly together, Helen reminded herself. Perhaps her reluctance had nothing to do with whatever was causing the problems between Josh and Matt. Perhaps Donna simply enjoyed nights with her boyfriend too much to want to be away from him for very long.

"There's just one thing I need you to do for me, Donna," Helen said, when the women were parting.

"What's that, Mrs. Santos?"

The First Lady heaved a deep sigh. "Please stop calling me Mrs. Santos. At least when we're in private—it's almost as bad as Ma'am."


	3. Chapter 3

The weathermen were partly right: on Friday morning the sky was brighter than it had been, and while grey clouds were still blowing across it, the sun was beginning to struggle through. It wasn't raining, at least not yet. Donna spent an hour in her office in the East Wing and then made her way up to the Residence, as Helen had asked her to. The Secret Service were expecting her, and let her by with a "good morning, Ms. Moss," and smiles. She found Helen with Peter and Miranda in the kitchen, the children still in their pajamas and sticky with crumbs and jam.

"I'm sorry, Donna," Helen said, rolling her eyes as she tried to wipe Miranda's face with a napkin. "I should have known I couldn't have them ready when I told you to come." Miranda squirmed out from her mother's grip and ran away, shrieking wildly. Donna winced at the sound, then hoped Helen hadn't noticed.

"Miranda Jean," Helen called after her, "come back here this minute and get your hands and face wiped! You know you're not supposed to—aaaagh!" and she ran out of the room towards the living room, where Miranda had already managed to fling herself onto a delicate-looking linen-covered chair.

"I warned that decorator," the child's mother muttered. "You heard me, didn't you, Donna? I. Warned. Her!"

Helen had asked for a relaxed living room, but relaxed in the White House really couldn't mean what it did in a normal home, a fact that, after days of argument with a whole committeeful of advisors, she'd reluctantly had to accept. The Residence was not, after all, just for the First Family; it had to be a place where they could entertain, though less formally than they would when the first State Dinner rolled around and she would have to preside over the State Dining Room downstairs. . . .

"I thought she said everything would have stain guard?" Donna asked over her shoulder, as she headed back to the kitchen for a damp cloth.

"That's what she said," Helen muttered darkly. "The housekeeper hates us already, I know it. Miranda, look at this mess. What on earth were you thinking of? What would Ms. Karsch say, if you did that at school? Go and wash your hands and face now, or there'll be a time-out."

"Mom," Peter shouted from somewhere out of sight, "Mom! Where's my Cowboys sweatshirt?"

"Miranda Jean, do I have to _count_?"

"MOM! I said, where's my COWBOYS SWEATSHIRT?"

"You have till five to get to the bathroom, Miranda. One—"

"You gave Elizabeth the weekend off, didn't you?" Donna asked, amused.

"Two—that's better—good and clean, Miranda!" Helen looked back at Donna. "She really needed to go to the dentist; she's going to have to have root canal, I think." She meant Elizabeth, Donna knew, not Miranda. "I could have asked Megan, but it's her day off, and . . . ."

The Santoses had two nannies, just so there wouldn't be a problem if one of them got sick, but Helen was always reluctant to make use of them for more than essential baby-sitting.

"MOM! I SAID, WHERE'S MY COWBOYS SWEATSHIRT?!"

"Stop shouting, Peter! Your sweatshirt's in your suitcase. Find something else, for goodness' sake, so we can get going before the day's half over."

"I've got something fun for both of you," Donna called out. "For when we get there!"

"Do you? Where is it? What is it?" Miranda tumbled back into the room, her face damp and almost jam-free. Helen caught her and wiped the last of it off her daughter's chin with her thumb before the child could squirm away again.

"You'll see," Donna said, smiling. "It's in my bag; you can have it when we get there. Come on, Miranda, let's go find you something nice to put on, while your mother helps Peter find his sweatshirt."

She put out her hand. The little girl put hers into it, and beamed up at her. The small hand was moist and a little sticky still, but it was warm and soft and trusting, and Donna's heart melted, the way it always did at moments like that.

"I want my princess headband," Miranda said, practically bouncing with excitement. "And my Komodo dragon shirt, and . . . "

Noise and mess notwithstanding, it was going to be a good weekend, Donna thought. And then, tomorrow night, Josh would be there.

oooooo

They went by motorcade; Helen didn't like helicopters, and while Peter and Miranda were fascinated by them, they tended to make Peter sick. The children tumbled out of the car as soon as it stopped and took off, laughing and shrieking, to explore the paths and woods that surrounded the big main lodge and the cluster of outlying cabins that were at the heart of Camp David. Their agents followed at a discreet distance, not to guard against kidnappers or assassins—the grounds were thoroughly secured—but to make sure nobody got lost or turned an ankle.

After putting their bags inside, Helen and Donna followed too. It was colder than in the city and quite muddy underfoot, but Donna had dressed warmly and worn her hiking boots, so she didn't mind. She drew a deep breath, savoring the rich mix of scents that permeated the air: the heavy, pungent smells of mud and rotting bark and mouldering leaves; the fresh wetness of last night's rain; the astringent tang of spruce and pine. Except for the evergreens the trees were still bare, but soft swellings at the tips of twigs and branches hinted at the leaves and blossoms that weren't far away. A squirrel ran across the path ahead of them, and a cardinal overhead chirruped and twittered before flying away in a flash of scarlet feathers, sending a shower of cold rain droplets sprinkling down on them and making them both shiver and laugh with delight.

"It feels so clean," Donna said.

"And so quiet," Helen agreed.

"No sirens."

"No cars honking."

"No radios blaring."

"No kids screaming." Helen smiled, and shook her head. "Usually that's when I start to worry."

"Their agents are with them; they're fine."

"I know."

There was a moment's silence, in which Donna thought she could hear the leaves beginning to unfold.

"Do you like to run?" Helen asked, unexpectedly.

"Run?" Donna repeated, blinking in surprise. "Yes, I like to run. I do it with Josh some mornings. Do you?"

"I did, back in Texas. At the White House—what am I supposed to do, jog up and down the Mall with the Secret Service running beside me? I've tried it a couple of times in the garden, but there's not really that much room—I get bored going round and round the same track all the time. And I'm pretty visible from the sidewalk in places. I don't like that."

"No one would see you here."

"No, they wouldn't, would they?"

"And this is a nice, wide track. It looks pretty smooth."

"That's what I was thinking. Bet I can get to that bend in it before you can."

And Helen took off. Donna stared after her for a second before breaking into a run herself. She caught up with Helen easily enough, but the First Lady glanced sideways at her and increased her pace. Donna sped up too. They jogged along side by side until they came to the bend.

"Keep going?" Helen suggested.

"Sure," Donna answered, not breaking stride.

They ran side by side for a while longer. The trail they were on looped around on the flat for a while and then started to climb. They glanced at each other, nodded, and kept going, their breaths coming in shorter and shorter puffs as they pushed themselves up the steep incline.

"Stop—at—the—top?" Helen asked, turning her head to look at Donna, who was keeping pace beside her.

"Am—I—allowed—to—beat—my—boss?" Donna puffed out.

"If—you—can!" Helen puffed back.

"I—can—try!" Donna took a deep breath, and pulled ahead. Helen did the same. They were neck and neck when they reached the top of the ridge, where the trail opened out into a clearing with an attractive Adirondack bench and a view. They both ignored the bench and collapsed onto the ground, heaving for breath, but somehow finding enough of it to start laughing.

"Nice—try—Donna!" Helen gasped out between laughs.

"I was—just—being polite!" Donna gasped back. And then, because that sounded more formal than she knew the woman beside her would like, she added, "Helen!" It was the first time she'd been able to bring herself to use her hostess's name. It came off her tongue more easily than she'd expected, but how could you maintain formalities with someone when you were both lying on the ground, covered with sweat and shaking with laughter?

They lay on their backs on the damp, mossy ground, giggling like a pair of high-school girls. Donna couldn't remember the last time she'd done something like this with another woman. Or with anyone, really—even with Josh, even on their wonderful trip, she hadn't let herself go as completely silly as this. It felt good.


	4. Chapter 4

"So, Mr. President—"

"We haven't got Harrison yet?" Matt interrupted his Chief of Staff. "You've got Sam on it haven't you? And Amy? What's the matter with them—I'd thought we'd have this in the bag by now!"

Matt could hear the pettishness in his voice, but he didn't care. They had to get through this, damn it; they had to get it out of the way so they could get on to other things. There was so much to do. He'd lain awake most of the night thinking about how much there was to do: about all the chinks in the walls, all the places where something might go wrong and leave him exposed and vulnerable, the way he'd been two weeks ago. FEMA—were they really sure about Goldsmith, the man they'd put in charge there? Kazakhstan, the mess he'd never wanted to be involved with—China and Russia staring each other down, and the United States right in the middle between them. Terrorism, immigration, school shootings—he'd been quizzing Josh about a staggering list of issues all morning, throwing off one question after another on seemingly unrelated issues till any normal man's head would have been spinning. Josh hadn't given any indication that any of it fazed him, but Matt was still aware of that tension in his Chief of Staff's face and voice and posture, and thought Josh probably had no more idea what to do about any of this than he did. He could feel the same tension in his own body, hear it in his voice. He took a deep breath, and raised a hand to rub the back of his neck. It was aching. There was a kink in it that was annoying the hell out of him, and his head was throbbing. And Helen had taken the children and left for Camp David that morning; there wasn't going to be anything relaxing to look forward to tonight . . . .

"Are you all right, sir?"

Josh's voice was quiet, but there was a touch of warmth in it that Matt would have welcomed yesterday. Today he was too tired to think of anything except the fact that he was letting his guard down. If he was going to get the job done, he couldn't afford to let anyone think he wasn't up for it, let alone the man in front of him.

"Of course," he answered, not managing to keep the irritation out of his voice. Josh's face tightened, and his voice, when he answered, had gone cool and neutral again.

"You've been looking pretty . . . tired, for the last few days, sir."

"I'm fine." Damn it, why couldn't he make himself sound fine? This wasn't what he needed, this grilling about himself this morning; he just needed to find out what was going wrong with Harrison and then get on to the next problem before something happened. . . .

"Are you getting enough sleep, sir?"

"For God's sake, Josh," Matt exclaimed, crossly, tossing the paper across his desk. "I said I'm fine. What the hell business of yours is it whether I had my beauty sleep last night or not?"

"I'm sorry to have to ask, sir," Josh said, his voice still quiet, his tone level. "But if I'm your Chief of Staff, it _is _my business to make sure you're well enough to do your job."

Matt felt the heat rise in his face. "Are you suggesting that I'm _not _fit to do my job, Josh?"

"No, sir, of course I'm not. But it's my job to make sure you stay fit to do it, and if I think you're getting too tired, it's up to me to do something about it. I can change your schedule today if you need it, let you take a break, get a nap."

Matt knitted his brows together.

"I'm not a two-year-old child or a doddering old man, Josh, and I don't have MS. Bartlet might have needed this kind of coddling; I don't. And I don't do naps."

"Take some time with your family then, sir? If I cleared your schedule you could leave for Camp David this afternoon instead of tomorrow. We could take care of most of what we need to do there, after you'd had a break. Or you could come back earlier than you'd planned, on Sunday."

Matt sighed. Josh was right; he WAS tired. More than tired. But a break wasn't what he needed; he needed to work harder. There was so much to do, so much to get on top of, if he wasn't going to make another mistake like he had a couple of weeks ago.

"I'm fine," he said again, more brusquely than he intended to. "So will you stop acting like my nanny and tell me what's going on with Harrison?"

Josh eyed him for a long minute. "All right, sir," he said, quietly.

It struck Matt as both odd and irritating that Josh Lyman, of all people, should be suggesting that he take time off. As if Josh would ever willingly take any time off himself unless Sam or Donna forced him to. As if Josh didn't have bags under his own eyes, and look as if he could do with a little more sleep himself.

oooooo

Donna still felt good an hour later, when she and Helen had made their way back to the lodge. They heard the children before they saw them; they were outside playing what looked like touch football with their Secret Service agents.

"Mommy!" Miranda called out. "I want Mommy on my team!" She ran over and grabbed Helen by the arm, tugging her towards the game.

"Oh, Miranda," Helen said, laughing. "I'm sure Donna doesn't want to play."

"I don't mind if you don't," Donna said.

"We haven't had a chance to play outside like this for ages," Helen said, apologetically, following Miranda. "You really wouldn't mind?"

"Can I be on your team, Peter?" Donna asked.

He nodded, one of the agents tossed the ball, and they all played happily, running and shouting with excitement, until a middle-aged man came out of the lodge, smiling, and said the children's dinners would be ready soon. Donna followed Helen into the house and supervised the hand-and-face-washing, while Helen found the children some clean clothes. Then they left Miranda and Peter having their dinners in the kitchen under the indulgent eye of the chef and his assistant, a young woman who promised Helen she wouldn't let them make nuisances of themselves. Donna heard her asking them if they wanted to help make chocolate-chip cookies after dinner, and smiled. Yes, this felt good, she thought. Helen was her boss, but she was starting to feel like a friend, too. A good friend. Not quite the sort of friend you think of as family—not yet—but for the first time Donna thought that maybe, someday, the First Lady might start to seem that way to her.

oooooo

Josh briefed Matt on the state of the education bill and Harrison, and left the President with a stack of folders to peruse. Matt sat at his desk and thumbed through them. After a while, when he'd absorbed everything he needed to, he got up to stretch. He stood for a minute at the window again, looking out at the grey sky and the few flowers that were trying to struggle into bloom, and sighed. Thoughts flitted briefly across his mind: about the weather, about the reasons for it, about his Chief of Staff and the tension he sensed whenever the man was in the room, the feeling he couldn't help getting that something was stretched almost to the breaking-point between them and could snap at any minute.

Matt wasn't overly given to analyzing the reactions of people around him—he was usually too focused on moving ahead and getting things done to waste much time on feelings and emotions—but some feelings were too strong to be ignored. Something had gone wrong between him and Josh, he knew that, and he knew he hadn't done much to patch things up between them earlier. But damn the man, did he have to sound so much like a mother hen? Get more rest, take a break—he didn't need a nap, damn it, and he didn't need a break, not right now, not when there was so much to learn, so much to get on top of. Nobody knew what it was like, nobody could know, to sit in this chair and be the one making these decisions, to be the one responsible when those decisions went wrong. He'd known he'd have to do that, of course, and he could do it. He'd been a Marine, a pilot, a mayor, a Congressman—he was used to taking responsibility and shouldering blame.

What he wasn't used to doing was making mistakes. He really hadn't made a lot of them in his career up to now, not the kind that ended up costing people their lives when, if he'd just done something else, they wouldn't have lost them. Not—and this was the part he was finding so hard to deal with—not children. Not little children, little girls. He thought of Miranda when she had been two: her sweet voice lisping a little as she began to put sentences together; her big eyes wide with wonder at some new book or toy she hadn't seen before; her rosebud mouth turned up to his for a kiss; her soft, still-almost-baby skin—he choked back a sob. If anything had happened to her—it was unbearable. Unbearable.

Things happened to children every day, he knew that. Things were happening to children somewhere in the world, right now, right this minute. And it was his job to stop them. He was a soldier, a Marine, a practiced politician, he could do this; he had to. He had to put these thoughts behind him; he had to focus, to keep on top of things, so it wouldn't happen again. But it would happen again, he knew that. What he didn't know was how to bear that. How did a man live, how did a man sleep, when he carried this kind of responsibility? He'd thought he'd imagined it before he decided to run; he'd thought he'd imagined it during the campaign; he'd thought he understood it after the election, and on the day he took his oath of office. But he hadn't. No one could imagine this, no one could understand this—no one who hadn't stood and watched a mother crying for her daughter and known that it was his fault, that if he had just done things differently. . . .

Josh certainly couldn't. Take a nap, indeed. Spend some time with your family. What did Josh Lyman know? He'd never had children; he never seemed very interested in them when they were around; he probably didn't want them, and never would. He might have a girlfriend now, but he still lived for politics—or politics and sex, anyway—what man didn't want sex? He supported Matt's education plans, but he could hardly feel the passion about them that Matt did: he was from Connecticut, for God's sake, from Westport, where you'd be hard put to it to find a house worth less than a million these days, and where the worst thing the kids ever had to deal with was not getting the ponies they wanted for Christmas—or Hannukah. Though most of them probably got the ponies, and nice little sports cars later on, too. Josh had gone through Harvard and Yale and had, Matt was quite sure, never had to work a day in his life to pay for either one of them. His father had been a partner in a big New York law firm, a litigator; Josh would have gone into politics because that's one of the things smart young men with good degrees and plenty of money and connections did to make a name for themselves.

He was good at it, of course. He cared about the right things, but not for the same reasons that Matt did. He was driven—Matt didn't think he'd ever seen a man more driven than Josh Lyman—but it was obviously ambition that drove him, ambition and ego, the need to climb the career ladder and get to the top, even though it was the staffing ladder and not the ladder of elected offices that he'd chosen for his particular demonstration of skill and success.

He couldn't be impelled by the same things that drove Matt, who was intimately acquainted with poverty and, having lifted himself out of it, had always felt that burning need to help the people who were still trapped in it, so their children wouldn't have to go through what he had and so they could enjoy some of the same things he did now. He didn't blame Josh for having had a better childhood than he'd had; he respected the man's commitment to liberal ideals and he needed the political savvy that Josh's years in the House and the Senate and Bartlet's White House had brought him, but he knew there was no way Josh could help him with this part of the job. Josh with his comfortable, wealthy family background, his Ivy degrees and his whiz-kid, golden-boy, single and single-minded Washington career could never understand the burdens that he, Matt Santos, who had children and loved them and had built his career on big ideas to help them and feed them and educate them, was carrying right now. Had been carrying for the past two weeks, since he had seen that mother crying for her baby at the Red Cross shelter after that damned volcano had erupted. Would always carry, as long as he was in this office, sitting behind this desk, making these decisions.

If he couldn't sleep right now, he couldn't sleep; that was his problem, and no concern of Josh's. There was nothing anyone could say or do to help, least of all Josh Lyman. And it wasn't something Matt could talk about to Helen, either—Helen who, though she was beginning to adapt to his new job on the surface, was still unhappy underneath it all at the upheavals Matt had introduced into their family's lives. Matt was just going to have to get through this on his own. . . .

oooooo


	5. Chapter 5

Donna and Helen had time to get showered and changed before eating their own dinner, which was delicious. Afterwards they played board games and read with the children—Donna brought out the books she had brought for them, but kept back the jigsaw puzzle and the bag of stuff for crafts she'd put together, so they'd have something to do tomorrow if it rained—and then got them ready for bed. Peter went off without a fuss, armed with his book and his mother's permission to read by himself for half an hour before he had to turn out the light; Miranda ran around squealing and giggling until Helen told her there'd be No Video For A Week If She Didn't Settle Down Right Now. After that she cuddled up while Donna read her one last story, and then snuggled into bed with her blanket wrapped around her neck and Raggedy Old Pooh clutched firmly in her arms.

"At last," Helen said, when she and Donna were finally settled on one of the big couches in front of the fireplace, a wood fire burning brightly in front of them to dispel the damp and chill of the rain that was starting up again outside. Donna could hear it beginning to drum quietly against the windowpanes. She and Helen had built the fire together, disdaining offers of assistance from the staff, and she'd sent Helen into fits of laughter by telling her about the time Josh and Sam had almost burnt the White House down with their fire-lighting skills.

"I've got to tell Matt about that," Helen had said, almost choking, she was laughing so hard.

"You have my permission," Donna had said airily, waving the box of matches over her head victoriously as the wood began to catch. "It's a classic."

They heard the floorboards creaking, and a patter of small, bare feet. It was Miranda again, wanting a glass of water. Helen got it for her, then came back to the couch and the fire.

"At last," she said again, plopping down beside Donna and dropping her head back on the cushions with an air of huge fatigue. They both laughed. "I think she's really gone down this time. It's exhausting, isn't it?"

Donna hesitated, not sure whether it was polite to agree or not.

"Oh, go on, you can say it," Helen said. "It is, it really is."

"But it's good too, isn't it?" Donna said, smiling. "She's so sweet like that, with her blanket and her Pooh. And yet she's really very advanced for her age; she sounds so grown-up sometimes when she's talking. And Peter's so intelligent, and says such interesting things. He's an awfully nice boy."

"Yes," Helen agreed, pouring Donna a glass of wine and handing it to her. "Yes, it's good too. Very good; I couldn't live without it. It's not for everybody, I guess, but it's what I wanted. I wouldn't know what to do without them, I really wouldn't."

Donna nodded, a bit of a lump coming to her throat. Helen looked at her astutely.

"Do you think you and Josh—?" she asked, and then added, hastily, "I'm sorry, you don't have to answer that. That was rude."

Donna shook her head, trying to smile.

"No, it's okay," she said. "I don't know; I don't know if we will or not. I don't know if Josh wants that or not."

"You do, though?" Helen asked, quietly.

Donna nodded, tightly.

"Yes," she said, softly. "Yes, I do. Not right away, not now—this job means a lot to me, and I really want to do it well—but someday . . . ."

"Don't wait too long," Helen said. "I need you in this job, God knows, but babies don't always happen when you want them to, you know. Sometimes it can take a lot of trying; you don't want to leave it too late. It really is something too special to be missed."

Donna looked down at her wine and nodded again, not trusting her voice to say anything.

"It doesn't have to be a choice, of course," Helen said, thoughtfully. "Between a baby and me, I mean. Your office is plenty big enough for a playpen, and I'd be more than happy to hire someone to help you out any way you needed to when the time comes."

Donna smiled, but felt her eyes start to mist over; she was really touched that Helen would take such an interest, that she'd care. And that she valued Donna enough to be willing to go to so much trouble to keep her if she had to.

"Thank you," she said. Her voice was a little husky. "That's good to know. But really, I don't know whether it's going to be . . . an option, or not."

Helen tipped her head and regarded her curiously.

"That's one of those things it's kind of important to know how your partner feels about, isn't it?" she said, not unkindly.

Donna looked back at her glass and nodded again.

"I know," she said. "I know. But it's still early for us—we've only been together a few months, and there have been so many other things to talk about, and Josh is so busy, and under so much stress—" She broke off abruptly and bit her lip. Helen looked at her more intently.

"You'll find the right time, I'm sure," she said. "Have some more wine?" Donna relaxed visibly and held out her glass. Helen filled it. She didn't want to push things too far, too soon. She could come back to that subject later, when they'd both had a little more easy conversation, a little more wine . . . .

oooooo

An hour later they were well into the second bottle, and they both had their shoes off and their feet up on the couch. It was big enough that they could lean back on the cushions at either end and stretch their legs out comfortably, facing each other. The fire was burning cheerfully in the big stone fireplace in front of them; the lamps glowed in their golden-brown mica and burlap shades. The Navaho rug at their feet was bright and warm, and more rugs and blankets had been thrown over the backs of the couches and chairs, making the place look cozy and informal. It was a pleasant room, Donna thought, comfortable and inviting, in spite of the kitschiness that was almost inevitable when a decorator had been asked to conjure up the essence of American Lodge. Most of the furniture here was on its third or fourth administration, she knew, something that had distressed the ladies on the Party's White House Decorating Committee no end, but hadn't seemed to trouble the Santoses at all.

"This is a great couch," Donna said.

"Yeah," Helen said, laughing and waving her glass in the air, as if offering up a toast to the couch, "That decorator wanted to replace it, you know, but I wouldn't let her. There's nothing wrong with it at all."

"Nothing," Donna agreed, settling down into it a little more deeply. "Nothing at all."

"A few little spots here, a cushion that's been sat on a few times there—that's nothing."

"Nothing. Nothing at all."

"I hated that decorator."

"I'm sorry." Donna tried to straighten up a bit and sound professional. "We should have got you another one. I thought—"

Helen waved her glass again, cutting her off. "I would have hated any decorator," she said. She wasn't laughing anymore. "I hated _this_. This whole Being Presidential thing—the pomposity of it, it's ridiculous. I just wanted to have a normal life. I wanted our kids to have a normal life."

Donna nodded. Helen hadn't made any secret of how she'd felt.

"I know what you're going to say," Helen said. "It's a wonderful opportunity for them. I know that; I know I should be grateful for it. I keep trying to be. I'm getting better at it, I think, but . . . ."

Donna nodded again. Helen _was_ getting better at it.

"It's an opportunity for you, too," she said quietly, not quite sure how Helen was going to react to that, but feeling—not for the first time—that it was something the First Lady needed to think more about.

Helen sighed, and swilled her wine around in her glass, looking into it.

"I know," she said. "I know. You're not the first person to say that—Matt must have said it to me a thousand times. But I didn't want an opportunity. I was perfectly happy where I was, doing what I was doing—helping out in the kids' classrooms, going along on their field trips, volunteering in that family shelter, spending time with my book group, with other moms. And I was looking forward to getting some time to myself, now Miranda's started school. I was going to do some writing, work on my photography—I've had a project I've been wanting to get to for ages. Matt says I can still work on it if I want to, but how can I? There's never any time. Everyone's got something else they want me to do, every minute of the day.

"And they all act as if what I was doing before was nothing. What I was doing, what all those mothers I knew were doing. Like if women aren't going off to offices and scrambling up career ladders and making lots of money, they're doing nothing. 'Here's your chance to make a difference in the world,' they're all saying to me, as if I wasn't before! As if all the fundraising and policy planning and lawmaking, all the negotiations and the diplomacy and the rest of it, can make any real difference to the world if, somewhere along the line, someone isn't stepping out of the spotlight and picking up that child that's crying, and wiping her nose and giving her a hug and a kiss, and then sitting down to read a book with her. Or taking her to a science museum, or talking to her about math, or cheering on her soccer team—everyone sneers at soccer moms, but _someone's_ got to cheer the kids on at their soccer games, don't they?

"And the boys—they need it as much as the girls do. Someone's got to listen to them practice the piano and tell them it's okay to be a boy and be better at music than football or fighting; someone's got to give them hugs and kisses and tell them it's okay when the other boys have been picking on them because they still like stuffed animals, or because they slipped up at school and admitted their favorite color's pink. Someone's got to listen to them and help them sort things out when they're confused; someone's got to teach them that it's better to be honest and get a lower grade than to cheat and get a good one, that it's better to be kind to animals than to kick them or kill them, someone's got to teach them how to stand up for themselves without hurting other people, and how to be gentle and good without being a wimp. It takes such a lot of work, bringing kids up to be decent human beings in this crazy world we've created, where you can turn on the t.v. and see people killing each other twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It's pretty important work. But when a woman decides to do it, everybody jumps all over her and tells her she's wasting her time and her talents, and she should be doing something else."

Donna blinked. She wondered if Helen meant her. She hoped not. She'd never said anything like that and never would, but she _had _been trying to convince the First Lady to come up with an agenda that looked beyond her children's needs. She'd thought Helen wanted that, and had understood why Donna wanted it for her. If she didn't . . . .

But Helen was still talking.

"I had a career, you know, before we had kids. I loved my job. But I loved my kids more. I could see that you can't do this job properly and squeeze it into a couple of hours in the evenings when you're tired from a long day at work and thinking with half your mind about how you're going to get ready for the morning; you certainly can't do that when your husband wants to be a mayor of a major city, or a Congressman, or President of the United States, for God's sake. I've been bored plenty of times, and I've been frustrated, but I knew I wanted to do this job and do it properly.

"And it's not just about staying home and giving hugs and wiping noses; it's about so many other things. It's not really a job women can do just sitting at home by themselves—or men, either. Moms need to be able to talk to other moms, dads to other dads, both of them to each other. They need to talk about their kids and their schools and what's working and what isn't. They need to have friends they can turn to who'll pick their kids up after school when they're running late, who'll tell their kids to zip their coats up when it's freezing out and their mothers aren't there to tell them to look after themselves, who'll tell their kids to mind their manners when they hear them mouthing off, to get back on the sidewalk when they see them skateboarding in the street, or back to school when they see them hanging out getting into trouble—they need those other moms and dads to help them do the job, and the kids need other kids' parents in their lives almost as much as they need their own.

"But the moms need time to get to know those other parents and to get to know their children, to build those social networks that will help hold all the kids up later on, and so you have coffee with other mothers and talk about each other's kids, and you talk to them at playdates and on the playground, and you volunteer in the classroom and join the P.T.A., and in between you maybe volunteer at a school in a poorer neighborhood or at a shelter for battered women or homeless families so your perspective doesn't get too limited and you can spend some time reading to kids whose mothers don't know how to, and wiping their noses and giving them hugs because no one else does, and if you've got a few minutes to yourself at the end of the day you write it in your diary because that's a pretty rare day. I get so _sick _of the little sneers I see in everyone's eyes whenever they talk about what I was doing and what I can do now. As if I wasn't doing something meaningful then, as if I wasn't contributing something important then, even though nobody was paying me for it and nobody was ever going to remember that I'd done it, except maybe some of those other moms and those kids."

Donna flushed.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry if I—if I've said anything to make you feel that way. I didn't mean it like that, I—"

"Oh," Helen said, sighing. "I didn't mean you. Not really. There've been a few times, but—I know I'm in a different situation now and I need to take advantage of it. I know I need to get an agenda going and do things in a bigger, more public way now; I know why you've been urging me to do that, and I want to do it, of course I do. I've got to balance that with my kids—having their dad become President has been a pretty big deal for them, their lives have been totally disrupted, and if they're not going to pay too big a price for that down the line they've got to have some stability and continuity in their lives, they've got to be able to count on me being there when they need me—but I know you understand that.

"I meant . . . I'm not sure who I meant, exactly. Just people. Political operatives, Party people—the ones who have their own kids parked with nannies who don't speak English and then wonder why little Johnny's speech is so delayed, or why they can't control him the way his nanny can when she's not there. Old college friends, the ones with the great jobs and no kids, or the ones who put their kids in daycare and couldn't believe I didn't want to do that too. And Matt—I probably meant Matt, which isn't fair, because I know he did understand what I was doing before, and valued it, and supported my doing it, but he doesn't seem to understand how hard it was to be uprooted from everything I was doing and dragged around the country campaigning and then suddenly find myself here, with nothing left of the life I had before and no way of ever going back to it. I had a job, Donna, an important job, and I still have it—I'm just having to try to figure out how to do it in these totally strange circumstances, with none of the friends or the kids' friends that I had to do it with before. And how to do it and still do all the big things for the country and the world that I know I need to do, because nobody should be in this position and not try to do those things, whether it was her choice to be here and do them or not."

Donna nodded, slowly. She realized she hadn't really given much thought to what Helen had been doing with her life before her husband had decided to campaign for President. She wondered if, unconsciously, she hadn't been guilty of dismissing it the same way Helen felt other people did. Professional recognition had become so important to her over the past few years that perhaps she had transferred some of her feelings about that to this other woman: if she herself wanted to work on the public stage, Helen ought to want to, too. And Helen did want to, now that she was in this position, she had said that. But perhaps Donna hadn't been understanding enough of the demands of Helen's other job. She certainly hadn't thought of it _as_ a job, the way Helen did. And perhaps there was something they could do with that . . . .

"You know," Donna said, "maybe that's one of the things we can put on your agenda—working to create more awareness of what at-home parents do, and helping to build conditions that would let them do it more easily."

Helen snorted.

"The women's caucus would just love that one. They'd think it was a subversive right-wing strategy to get women out of the workplace and back in the kitchen again, oppressed and barefoot and pregnant. I can just imagine what Amy Gardner would say."

"You know, that's really the best argument I can think of for making it the star item on your agenda."

Helen laughed then.

"You're not a fan of Amy's? Oh, I forgot—she and Josh—"

"Yes," Donna said hastily, "they did, but that's not why. At least," wanting to be honest, because Helen had been so open and honest with her, "that's not the only reason why. Amy's entirely too hard-line and dogmatic; she's got tunnel vision about what she thinks are women's issues, and while that's going to please a certain part of the President's base, it's not going to help him with most voters at all. We could help to offset that. It could be a really good idea to have you voicing something different. We could make it clear that you're not arguing against women in the workplace. You support good daycare—you do, don't you?"

"Of course I do," Helen said. "Not every family can afford to have one parent stay home full-time with their kids. And not every woman should do it. If she doesn't want to be there, she's probably going to do them more harm than good. But if she does want to make that choice, or if a man wants to do it, they shouldn't be penalized for that. My sister can write her daycare expenses off on her taxes. We can write our nanny off—both our nannies. But when I was staying home doing the same job a nanny would be doing, Matt couldn't write me off. That's just wrong."

"It's about choice, really, isn't it?" Donna said, warming to the subject. "You want to take a stand for a woman's right to choose the work she does and where she does it. As well as her right to choose in other ways."

"Yes. And to be supported in her choice, to have conditions that will let her make the choices that are right for her and her family. It shouldn't have to be an intolerable financial burden to a family to have a parent step out of the public workforce for a while to raise her children and to support other parents raising theirs."

"There needs to be more awareness of what's involved in doing that. That it's a job—a real job, an important job. And then maybe a tax credit to help offset the cost of it. A more substantial deduction, at least."

"At least."

"There must be other things we could do too, mustn't there?"

"Really, we need to be working for a society that's more child-centered. Children are our most important resource, they're our future. And yet their needs tend to come pretty low down on our country's list of priorities."

"Child nutrition is a big problem still; it affects students' attention-spans in school, and millions of children go to bed hungry."

"In a country as rich as ours, it's a sin."

"Working families need high-quality, affordable daycare, but they also need flex-time and parental leave and all those other things the President campaigned on."

"I can support him publicly on those."

"Yes, you can."

"And on education. Education really is crucial; every school should be well-funded, well-cared for, well-staffed . . . ."

"Safe."

"Beautiful. If it isn't good enough for my kids, it shouldn't be good enough for anybody else's, either."

"That would make a great sound-bite, Helen. We could address it to anyone who doesn't support the President's education plan: you could show pictures of some of the really bad public schools across the country and say, 'Would this be good enough for your kids? Then how can you say it's good enough for someone else's?'"

"Good parents don't just care about their own kids, they care about everyone's."

"Just because they're kids?"

"Just because they're kids. And because good parents know what kids need, and how badly they need it."

"What a difference that hug makes?"

"Or that teacher who cares enough to notice when someone's shoes are untied. Or when he doesn't have any shoes."

"Or when she's having trouble with her reading or her math."

"The teacher who has the training to notice."

"And to know what to do."

"Or just the teacher who isn't so stressed-out by having to deal with thirty or forty out-of-control little demons running around all over the place that she has the time and energy left to notice and do something."

"Smaller class sizes are really crucial, aren't they?"

"They really are. And the only way to get them is to pay for them. We've got to create a society that cares enough to pay for what our children need."

"And that's where the First Lady could make a real difference, because she can get people thinking about the children and their families, and not just the program. You can put a human face on the issues by talking about your own experiences with your own children and your friends' children and the children you've worked with as a volunteer. People will listen to you, Helen, because you _are _a mother, and because you've made children's issues your issues in a very real way. They've been your job and your life and they still are, and that's what will give you the authority to stand up and talk to people about children and what they need. Being the President's wife will open the doors and win you the platform, but your experience is what will give you something to say and the right to say it."

"Wow," Helen said, with a little laugh. "I hadn't really thought about it quite like that—that I had anything important to say, or any real right to say it. I mean, the idea of standing up and asking people to listen to me, just because I'm Matt's wife . . . ."

"You haven't by any chance been undervaluing yourself and what you've done as a mother, have you?"

Donna was smiling now. This, she thought, was what her job was really about—not just designing agendas or arranging speaking events, or, thank goodness, helping the First Lady choose her wardrobe, but listening to another woman and getting her to see that she did, in fact, have the experience and the resources she needed to make the most of the tremendous opportunities that lay ahead of her in her new life. Opportunities that were opportunities for Donna, too. She could learn as much from the First Lady, she thought, as the First Lady could from her. The frustrations she'd felt in dealing with Helen up till now were, she realized, mostly indications of the ways she herself needed to learn and grow. She needed more patience and understanding and, yes, humility, even, if she was going to do this job well—she'd thought she'd learned everything she had to about those things and then some when she was working for Josh, but really, didn't every new job require that you learn about them even more? Josh was having to learn more about them to do his new job. Perhaps even the President was having to learn more about them to do his. And there would be other things for her to learn about, other ways to grow in this new job too—lots of other ways. . . . But Helen was talking again.

"Amy will be furious, won't she? Matt won't like that."

"Do you care?"

Helen grinned, wickedly.

"No, I don't care. I couldn't imagine why he hired that woman. What about Josh, though? What will he think?"

"Amy's feelings aren't really very high up on Josh's list of priorities any more, Helen."

Helen laughed.

"I didn't mean that. I meant—what will he think of my talking about some of those things? About more support for mothers—for parents—who stay home? I sometimes get the feeling that Josh doesn't think too much of me and what I'm doing now, or what I was doing before, being home like that with the kids . . . ."

"Josh?" Donna opened her eyes wide. "Josh doesn't—" She cut herself off. She'd been about to say that Josh didn't care what Helen did or didn't do, as long as it didn't get in the way of what the President was doing, but she realized that that sounded even worse than what Helen thought he was thinking.

"Josh isn't thinking that," she said, more gently. "Josh is just thinking about what he's got to do to help your husband do his job."

"And you. I know he's thinking about you."

Donna dropped her eyes and smiled a little. And me, she thought. Yes, Josh was finding time with everything else that was going on to think of her quite a bit. It was still such a new feeling, to know that Josh was thinking that way about her.

For all her excitement, Helen noticed Donna's smile. She had wondered a little whether Donna's quietness over the past couple of weeks and the tension that Matt had noticed in Josh simply meant that the two were having couple problems. She hadn't really thought so, though, and she was sure she was right about that now.

"Have another glass of wine," she said to Donna.

"Sure," Donna said, looking up from her reverie, smiling. But at the back of her mind she was still thinking about tomorrow night, when Josh would be here. And Helen had promised them one of the cabins to themselves . . . .

oooooo


	6. Chapter 6

Josh shrugged himself into his coat and threw his backpack over his shoulder before starting to walk towards the Oval Office, where he was going to try one more time to convince the President to head to bed—he thought that maybe, if Matt saw that his Chief of Staff was ready to leave the office before 9:00 p.m., he'd go too. Josh had begun to realize that one of the qualities that had made Leo so effective in this job had been his calm. He'd never hurried; Josh couldn't remember Leo ever hurrying—well, a few times, maybe, but those had been extraordinary circumstances, not everyday ones. That his marriage had fallen apart in their first year of office made it clear that he hadn't always been able to strike a balance between work and private life, but he'd always seemed rested, always seemed to have time to savor a good meal, or the recollection of one. Josh was a long, long way from becoming Leo—he couldn't really picture himself ever becoming like Leo—but he had begun to realize that a big part of his job was to keep life manageable for the President, and that he would do that best if he at least seemed to be keeping it manageable for himself. Which meant heading out the door before 9:00 when there was nothing so pressing happening that he really had to stay, even when Donna wasn't waiting for him to go home to.

Not that he was looking forward to going home when Donna wasn't there. He was tired enough—he was wiped, actually, exhausted—but the thought of going home to his apartment alone didn't hold a whole lot of appeal. It was amazing how quickly he'd gotten used to having Donna there with him. He wished she hadn't had to go away, especially now. He'd lived on his own for years; he'd managed sleepless nights on his own for years. He could cope by himself, he knew that. He just didn't want to have to. This had been a bad stretch, these last couple of weeks, and having Donna there had made all the difference. Not that he'd told her everything: he didn't want to burden her with all that crap if he didn't have to. But just having her there, feeling her next to him—her warmth, her softness, her concern . . . .

His hand was on the doorknob and he was about to walk in to say goodnight to the President when he stopped and thought for a minute. After the election his mother had suggested, hopefully, that perhaps he could start using a real briefcase now, and she'd bought him a very nice one at the holidays. After that she'd asked regularly, in true Jewish-mother form, if he liked it and if he was using it or not. Donna had made him bring it to the office one day so he could tell her yes. It was still languishing there somewhere, in some drawer or closet where Margaret had packed it away after tripping over it for the twentieth or thirtieth time-unused and, usually, unthought of. He thought of it now, and wondered whether he should actually trade it for his backpack. Maybe his mother was right. Maybe the President would trust him more, maybe he'd be more inclined to listen to him if he dressed the part more consistently and didn't go around looking like some sort of overgrown, superannuated college student who'd put on a suit for his first job but hadn't quite managed to leave all the vestiges of his frat-kid life behind.

Josh sighed. He was so tired. He had no idea where the briefcase was, and no real inclination to go looking for it. But he dropped the backpack on the floor and adjusted the lapels of his coat, his tie. Then he squared his shoulders and opened the door, ready to go and try one more time to talk the President into doing whatever he needed to do to get a good night's sleep.

oooooo

"Donna." Helen cradled her glass in both hands, looking into its murky depths. She needed to get on with this, no matter how awkward or uncomfortable it was going to be. And she felt certain that it was going to be very awkward and very uncomfortable, in spite of the happy, friendly time she and Donna had had together that day. In some ways the fun they'd had earlier almost made this harder: if Donna felt more like a friend now, Helen had more to lose if her new friend resented her prying questions. And yet, if she hadn't been able to think of the woman in front of her as something like a friend, she knew she wouldn't be able to do this at all.

"Donna," she said, quietly, "what's going on with Josh?"

Donna stiffened. If her glass had been full it might have spilled. As it was, she tightened her hold on it and raised it carefully to her lips, taking a slow, deliberate sip before answering.

"Josh?" Her voice was deliberately casual. "Why—you know, they're working on the education bill, and that lawsuit on the west coast. He's got Sam on that, I think, as well as on the education bill, and Amy Gardner—"

"Donna," Helen said quietly. "You know I didn't mean that."

"I—I'm not sure what you meant, ma—Helen."

"I meant, what's bothering Josh, Donna? I told you before, Matt's sure something is, and it's worrying him."

"Ma'am—"

"Helen."

"I don't think we should be having this conversation, Helen."

"Donna, I think we have to. I know this is awkward, but honestly, Matt needs to know. Whatever it is, it's affecting the way he and Josh work together. Matt can't have that—he's got enough other things to worry about without having to worry about what's bothering Josh."

"Why doesn't he just ask Josh then?" Donna's voice had an edge to it that made Helen wince inside. It was hard to imagine a more difficult conversation, but she couldn't see any way out of it. Matt had said he needed to know, and what Matt needed really had to come before anything else now. Helen had no intention of watching her husband worry any more than he had to, no matter how unhappy she might be about his having gotten himself into this terrible job.

"I don't think he knows how, Donna. He's not very good at that sort of thing. He's a typical man that way, I'm afraid. Nobody could be a bigger fan of Matt's than I am, but I've been married to him for a long time, and that's one thing I've learned about him: he's pretty clueless when it comes to knowing how to sort things out with someone when there's a problem that's personal. You'd think he'd be good at it because of what he does, but he's not really a politician, not in that way. I think voters respond to him partly because of that: they don't feel like he's manipulating them, because truthfully, he wouldn't know how. And that's a wonderful thing. But it also means that he doesn't always have the—the finesse, I guess—that most politicians do, and when something comes up that calls for it, he's pretty much lost."

Donna looked away. She felt torn between wanting to protect Josh's privacy and an overwhelming desire to explain him to Mrs. Santos and the President, to see these people to whom he had already given so much—and who were unquestionably going to take so much more from him over the next four or maybe eight years—understand why Josh was the way he was and what his job sometimes cost him. She was still burning from the insults the President had dished out to Josh over the business of Toby and the vulcanologist. Josh had been proved right, of course, horribly right, and he had said that the President had apologized and assured him he trusted him, but from what she had been able to dig out of Josh about Matt's actual words, she didn't think the President had gone far enough with his apology—not nearly far enough.

"Donna," Helen said. "Please. Matt doesn't know how to talk to Josh about this. I wouldn't know how to talk to him about it. Neither of us really knows him well enough, and I think we need to—Matt certainly needs to—if he and Josh are really going to trust each other and work well together. And if Matt isn't going to be endlessly putting his foot in it and saying something tactless without even realizing it," she added, trying for a lighter note. Donna didn't smile.

"Josh doesn't need a lot of tact," she said. "God knows he doesn't have much himself. He can take correction and rebukes from someone like Leo or the President; he takes them better than anyone I've ever known. But he does feel them—that's what people don't realize about him. When someone he respects has been angry with him, when he's been told he's done things wrong, it does affect him. He doesn't get angry back, at least not with the President—he never gets angry with the person he's working for, he doesn't let himself. I think it might be healthier for him if he did."

Helen sat silently, taking that in. "How does it affect him, then?" she asked gently, after a minute.

"Lots of ways," Donna said. "But mostly it just ups the pressure inside him. He gets angry, all right, but mostly he gets angry with himself. He doesn't know how to let up on himself; he never has."

"He seemed to be pretty angry with you last fall, after you joined the campaign," Helen said, shrewdly. Donna sighed.

"He was," she said. "He was very angry with me, but I honestly don't think he recognized that that's what he was feeling, not until Lou stuck us in a room together and told us to work it out, and he blew his stack. I don't think he'd let himself think about it like that, or call it that."

"Hmmm," Helen said, unconvinced.

"It's complicated," Donna said. "He's a complicated man. Maybe he really is angry with the President, Helen, but he'll never acknowledge that, not even to himself. He could never admit that he was angry with President Bartlet for not telling them about his MS, for the mess that put them all into. Josh could have gone to jail over that, and he didn't know anything about it at all. But Josh would never say that he was angry with President Bartlet about that. I've never heard him say that."

"I wouldn't have guessed that," Helen said. "To be honest, I'd have said that Josh was someone who spent a lot of his time being angry at people. He has that reputation, rather—'Bartlet's bulldog,' isn't that what the press used to call him? And he gets so tense and keyed-up. He doesn't smile very much."

"He used to," Donna said, sighing, and picking up her glass. It was almost empty. They were drinking red wine. She would rather have had white, but when your hostess is the First Lady and your boss you don't criticize her choice of wines. She didn't actually dislike red wine; she just liked white better. This was good wine, too, full-bodied, rich, and warm on the tongue. She'd have a headache later, which she never got with white, no matter how much she drank of it, but knowing that didn't stop her from letting Helen pick up the bottle and fill her glass again. "And yes, they called him Bartlet's bulldog. But that's because he's so good at bullying Congress, especially Republicans. He loves getting mad at Republicans, Republicans and Democrats who aren't living up to their name. He has no trouble getting angry with them at all."

"You said he was a complicated man."

"He _is _a complicated man. You said the President isn't a typical politician, Helen. Well, Josh isn't a typical politician either. He's worked in Washington for a long time, so he's learned that you have to make compromises to get things done—to get good things, important things done. He's learned that sometimes politicians have to sign on to programs that aren't ideal, just because it's the only way to see any progress on the issues that matter more. He's learned how to do that, and he's learned how to work with congressmen and senators and get them to do it, but he's still far more likely to err on the side of honesty than of what you're calling finesse. He's had to learn the hard way when to keep his mouth shut: he used to blurt all kinds of things out that he shouldn't, just because he cared so much about the issues he was talking about, the solutions he was trying to find, and it seemed so obvious to him that what he was saying was right. People often think he's arrogant and egotistical, but he's really not; he's just more passionate about what he's doing than a lot of people are, and that makes them uncomfortable. He does have ideals; he does care about the truth—he cares about it passionately, it's what he does all this for. He left Hoynes nine years ago and went to work for Governor Bartlet's first campaign because he saw that Bartlet was willing to tell people the truth. He could have run Hoynes' campaign again last year, he could have run Bob Russell's, but he wanted to work for someone he could believe in, someone he could trust to care about the issues as much as he does and to tell people the truth about them, and he thought your husband was a man who would do that and do it well. He takes his work very seriously."

She paused, and looked down at her glass, as if she was afraid of what Helen would find in her face if she could see it.

"Very seriously," she said, again. "I don't think you really understand how seriously Josh takes what he does, or how much it costs him sometimes to do it well."

oooooo

"Mr. President?"

Matt looked up from the papers on his desk, rubbing his neck unconsciously. He was so stiff and so tired, but there was still so much to do . . . .

"You're on your way out?" he asked, a flicker of annoyance in his voice that he didn't want there but couldn't seem to keep out. Was he really the only one who realized how much there was to do?

"Yes," Josh said, quietly. "And you should be too, sir. We'll get more done tomorrow if we've had some sleep tonight."

Leo would have died from shock, Josh thought, if he could have heard that. He'd have been pleased, though. And Donna would be pleased . . . .

"You go then, if you haven't got anything else to do. I'll go when I'm finished here. There's a lot to be got through yet, you know."

Matt's irritation was plainer than before. Josh stood looking at him, saying nothing for a minute. Matt was too tired to notice the way the other man drew in a long, deep breath, as if steeling himself for something he knew was going to be hard to do.

"Mr. President," Josh said firmly, "I know you're not going to like this, but—I think you should talk to somebody."

"What?" Matt said.

"Talk to somebody, sir. Somebody who'll be able to help you start getting some more sleep."

"I don't think it would be a good idea for me to start taking sleeping pills, Josh," Matt snapped, pettishly. "The Joint Chiefs might have a problem with that if someone decided to start a war in the middle of the night."

"I don't think that would be a good idea either, sir. That's why I think you should talk to somebody. Because you really do need to start getting some more sleep."

Matt stared at Josh, blinking.

"Are you saying what I think you're saying?" he asked, slowly. Josh looked at him steadily.

"I can arrange for someone to talk to you privately, sir. No one would ever know. I think it's what you—"

"'Someone'?" Matt said loudly, standing up so suddenly that his chair shot back and hit the wall. He hardly noticed. "'_Someone_'? You mean a shrink, don't you? You're saying you think I should see a shrink?!"

He leaned on the desk heavily, breathing hard, as he stared at the face of the man in front of him: the man who had told him he shouldn't leave public office but should run for President; the man who had done more than any other single person to put him in this office, with its burdens no one who hadn't sat behind this desk could possibly understand; the man who now, apparently, thought Matt was unfit for that office, just because he hadn't had a good night's sleep.

"A psychiatrist. That's what you're talking about, isn't it? You're saying, because I could have used a little more sleep last night, you think I should see a psychiatrist!"

Josh took another deep breath.

"It wasn't just last night, sir, you know that. You didn't sleep much the night before that, or the night before that, or the night before that. In fact, I'd say you haven't slept much for a couple of weeks now. Since—"

"Do you remember who you're talking to?" Matt ground out furiously. Josh's face was lined with tension; a vein in his temple throbbed. But he looked Matt squarely in the eye and said,

"Yes, Mr. President, I do."

"Really? Because I wouldn't have guessed it. You don't sound like you think you're talking to the Commander in Chief of the most powerful military in the world. You don't sound like you've remembered that you're in the Oval Office talking to the President of the United States. You sound like you think you're talking to some pathetic, self-pitying little whack job who's so afraid of his own shadow he can't shave in the morning without whining to some shrink about all the things that didn't go right in his childhood, who can't get a papercut without getting some kind of post-traumatic stress about it too!"

Josh flinched. All the blood seemed to run out of his face, leaving it a sickly greyish-white. He dropped his head and shoved his hands into his pockets, where Matt could see him clenching and unclenching them through the fabric. There was a long, ugly silence. Then he lifted his head again. His face was drawn, the myriad little lines that had unexpectedly appeared in it gathered around his eyes and his mouth making him look suddenly twenty years older.

"Do you want me to resign, sir?" he asked for the second time in as many weeks, in a low, half-strangled voice Matt had never heard before.


	7. Chapter 7

Helen looked at Donna steadily over the rim of her glass.

"What do you mean?" she asked. "I do know how hard Josh works; of course I do. Matt knows it too. He appreciates it; he really does. I know he's told Josh that."

"Josh," Donna said, choosing her words carefully, "would never knowingly do anything to betray the President's trust. He would certainly never tell the President a lie. I think it hurt him to be called a liar. I think it hurt him quite a lot."

"Matt called Josh a liar?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"That afternoon, before the volcano erupted."

"Before you came to dinner?"

Helen remembered how silent both Matt and Josh had been that evening, how awkward the little dinner party had been.

"Yes."

"Do you know why?"

"Josh told me the President was angry because Josh hadn't told him that the vulcanologist Josh thought he should meet with, Dr. Kaplan, had been Toby Ziegler's brother's college roommate, and Toby had talked to Josh about him and what he had to say."

"I don't understand. What did Matt think Josh was lying to him about?" Helen knew all about the problem of Kaplan and Toby Ziegler; she remembered telling Matt he was punishing Josh for something that wasn't Josh's fault. She'd told Matt he should apologize. He'd said he had.

"Josh told me that the President said—" Donna's voice choked a little. She hadn't really realized how angry she was herself about what the President had said until Helen had started talking to her about it. She took a deep breath and tried again to steady her voice. "He said Josh was a liar because he hadn't given him all that information about Dr. Kaplan. He said Josh had told a lie of omission."

"I'm so sorry, Donna," Helen said. She meant it. "That was—wrong of Matt. He told me he'd given Josh a hard time; he didn't tell me exactly what he'd said. If he said that . . . I can see why Josh would have been angry. But Matt told me he'd apologized."

Donna nodded, her face still tense with all the emotion she was trying not to show. "I think he did apologize for not listening to Josh's advice and passing Dr. Kaplan's warning on to the Governor of Washington, or beginning an evacuation in time to get people out. But Josh said the President told him if he ever found out that Josh had withheld information from him again, any information, he'd fire him."

Oh, dear, Helen thought. Matt had never been very good with apologies, but she hadn't thought he'd do as bad a job of it as that. And he didn't understand why Josh was acting differently around him? But Donna was still talking.

"I don't think Josh is angry with the President, Helen, I really don't. Or if he is, it isn't something he realizes he's feeling. But he doesn't know what your husband wants him to do. He _can't_ tell the President everything; that's impossible. It's Josh's job to filter what gets through to the President, so your husband can concentrate on what he really needs to and doesn't have to be distracted by every little thing. Every day, every minute, Josh is sorting information, prioritizing it, deciding what the President needs to worry about and what he doesn't. He knows how to do that. But I think he has no idea now how your husband is going to react to his doing that, when he's going to think that Josh has withheld something he shouldn't have and be upset about it. Josh can deal with the President being angry with him—it hurts him, but Josh doesn't let being hurt stop him from doing what he has to do. But to be called a liar, to be told he could lose, not just this job he's worked so hard for, but any chance of ever doing a job like this again, just for doing what he was supposed to be doing—that's so unfair. I think Josh feels like he doesn't know how to deliver what the President wants and still do what the President really needs. He's hurt and he's worried, and when Josh is really hurt or really worried, he gets pretty tense, and he pulls into himself. That's what the President is seeing. That's what's going on."

Helen nodded, slowly.

"I'm sorry, Donna," she said again. "I shouldn't say this, I suppose, but if Matt said all that to Josh, he's been an idiot. I'll tell him so."

Donna bit her lip and nodded too.

"Thank you," she said quietly. The two women sat for a minute, looking at their empty glasses, lost in thought. Then Helen shook herself and sat up.

"Let's have some coffee," she suggested. Donna nodded. Helen went to the kitchen, and came back a few minutes later with a coffee tray and a bottle of Bailey's. Donna took a cup. It was scalding hot, the way she liked it, and the liqueur was smooth, sweet, and strong.

She took another sip, feeling the heat and the buzz rush through her. She'd had quite a bit to drink, but she'd always had a pretty good head for alcohol, and although she was feeling it, she wasn't drunk—not yet. She knew she'd just said more than she would have without all the wine, but, thinking about it, she decided she wasn't sorry; she thought, on the whole, that it had been important to get those things out and understood.

She wanted to say more. She thought for a minute, sipping her coffee, weighing how much her judgment might be being colored by the wine and the liqueur, considering how much farther she could safely go.

"At least," she said, after a minute or two, during which both women had been sipping their coffee without speaking, "what we were talking about—that's part of what's going on."

oooooo

"What?" Matt said, staring at his Chief of Staff in bewilderment.

"You don't really want me in this job, sir. I can clear out my office and have my resignation on your desk in an hour." And Josh turned and started to walk towards the door.

Matt blinked. Josh must be right about the sleep, he thought; he was too tired to process what had just happened, how they had got here again when here was exactly the place Matt had been most wanting to avoid. But what the hell had brought this on, anyway? God damn the man, if Matt couldn't even disagree with him without him dangling his resignation like that—

"God damn it, NO, Josh! What the hell do you think you're doing? I thought we'd been through all this. I am NOT asking for your resignation; you know I've said I want you in this job. Though if you're going to play this sort of game with me every time I don't care for your advice, you almost make me wonder if I shouldn't just accept your resignation and get it over with. I never thought you were such a goddamned diva, Josh; Bartlet and Leo may have been able to put up with your temperament, but if you're going to work for this President, you're going to have to cut that kind of crap out!"

Josh stared at him for another long minute, his mouth still taut, the vein in his temple still pulsing angrily. Then he took a deep breath.

"I—serve at the pleasure of the President, sir," he said, quietly. "Do you need anything else tonight, Mr. President?"

Matt rubbed a hand over his head, feeling suddenly exhausted.

"No," he said. "No, not tonight. I—I think I'll go to bed. You should too."

"I'll see you in the morning then, sir."

"Yes. Right. Josh—"

But he didn't know what to say. Josh looked at him, his face so completely shuttered that Matt could get no help from it at all.

"Yes, Mr. President?"

Matt sighed. He was too tired to sort this out tonight; it would have to wait till the morning.

"Good night."

"Good night, Mr. President."

The door to the Chief of Staff's office closed with a quiet click.

oooooo

Helen looked up from her coffee, surprised. "There's something else?"

Donna looked at her seriously. "There's always something else, Helen. Like I've said, Josh is—a complicated man."

Helen knitted her brows together. "Tell me," she said, concern evident in her voice.

Donna sipped her coffee thoughtfully, wondering where, exactly, to begin.

"Part of the problem," she said, "is that it was Toby." Her voice seemed to soften a little when she said that, and she looked almost sad, Helen thought.

"Toby Ziegler?" she asked, even though she didn't really need to.

Donna nodded. "It's—I understand why your husband is worried about Josh talking too much to Toby, Helen. Josh understands why, too, and he won't do it. But—it's hard on him. Harder than you or the President can realize."

"Because they're friends?" Helen asked, sympathetically.

Donna hesitated. "Yes, they're friends," she said. "It's complicated, though."

Helen smiled, then thought from the look on Donna's face that perhaps she shouldn't have.

"You said everything was complicated with Josh," she said, apologetically.

Donna still didn't smile. She looked very serious. Helen felt a bit bewildered. The Bartlet staff had all been friends, obviously, and Toby had been through a difficult time, but she still couldn't imagine what there could be about a man she thought of as crusty and unappealing to make Donna's voice go soft and to bring that intent seriousness to her face.

"Toby and Josh . . . it's hard to explain. They have a few things in common, but they're very different, too, and they've sparred with each other more than they've ever agreed. Half the time you wouldn't even think they liked each other. Especially Toby—when I first met them, I really didn't think he liked Josh at all. I'm not sure Toby thought so, either."

Helen couldn't help laughing a little at that. She felt a certain sympathy with Toby there, though she wasn't going to say so. But Donna seemed to read her thoughts. She flushed.

"I know what you're thinking," she said. "I know what Josh can be like, how he can seem to someone who doesn't know him. But—you have to get to know him, Helen, you have to. He's a difficult man sometimes, but he's so good, really, he cares so much about doing the right thing, about helping people, making a difference. And he doesn't do it for himself. It isn't ambition, not the way people think—not ambition for himself. It's just—he knows he can make a difference, and it's not even like it's a choice, really, it's something he just _has _to do. He works so hard—I've never seen anyone work as hard as Josh does. He never stops and counts what it's costing him, never. And it does cost him. He loves it, but it's hurt him, this job, and the job he did before, for President Bartlet—it's hurt him in so many ways, but he just keeps going, because he couldn't live with himself if he let himself stop. If he's not out there, in the thick of it, trying to fix things, it makes him crazy, watching, seeing all the things that need to be done, all the things that would make this country a better place, and not being able to try to make them happen. When he was shot—"

She broke off suddenly, and turned her face away, swallowing. Helen saw her eyelashes fluttering, the coffeecup trembling in her hand.

"That must have been very hard," she said gently. "You were with him then, weren't you?" She meant "working for him," but Donna took it differently.

"No," she said, and Helen heard the catch in her voice. "No, I wasn't. I should have been. I was always with him, but the President was just giving a speech to a bunch of college kids, Josh didn't need me for that, he said I could go home. I was so pleased because it was an early night for a change and I got to go home. If I'd been there—" her voice caught again. She stopped for a minute, swallowing hard. When she spoke again her voice was even, though Helen could hear the effort it was taking her to keep it that way.

"He was alone," Donna said, looking down at the carpet. "He wasn't with the others; he'd come out of the meeting behind them, and he was alone. He said later he heard the shots and ran towards them. He was trying to get to the President, trying to get to the others, I don't know why—to help them, to be with them? What kind of person hears gunshots and runs towards them? But Josh does. Josh did. And because he did, he got shot. And he was alone. They didn't find him right away; they didn't even go looking for him right away. The Secret Service put the President in a car and took him away. They put Leo in a car and took him away. Sam, C.J., Charlie, they all said later they thought Josh was with Leo, but he wasn't, he was sitting bleeding his life out somewhere behind them. If Toby hadn't . . . . It was Toby who found him. Toby realized Josh wasn't there and went looking for him and found him."

"It was Toby?" Helen said, understanding now why Donna's voice took on that different note when she said Toby's name.

Donna nodded, not trusting her voice any more.

Except with her family, Helen wasn't a very physical person; she didn't like to be touched by people she didn't know well, or to touch them. But she found herself putting out a hand now, taking Donna's, and squeezing it gently. The two women sat silently, looking at the fire, lost in their own thoughts.

oooooo

Donna broke the silence first. "Josh is very loyal, Helen. He doesn't have a lot of friends, really; he doesn't trust a lot of people; but when he does trust you, he's loyal to you. I don't think he's any more loyal to Toby than he would have been if he hadn't been shot and Toby hadn't found him. He's no more loyal to Toby than he is to C.J., or Sam, or . . . or me, really."

"I hope he'd be more loyal to you!" Helen exclaimed, startled. Donna's eyes were still a little watery, but she smiled.

"He feels different things for me, of course, but . . . fundamentally, I don't think his loyalty IS that different. That's why I know I can trust Josh, because being loyal isn't just something he's trying to do for me, right now, because he has to, to get me to go to bed with him. I've been with men like that; no matter how much they say they want you, no matter how much they think they mean it, it never works when it's like that, when it's something they're just putting on because they have to, and it's not—not part of who they are, you know?"

Helen nodded a little. "I know. I've been with men like that too, before I met Matt. He was different. I knew right away that he was different. I knew I was going to marry him the first time I heard him talk about his family. He lived in such a different world than they did, he'd come so far from where he'd started—but he was so loyal to them, to his mother and his father, to his brothers—and one of his brothers is pretty hard to be loyal to. But Matt was. He still is. That's why he does all this, I think—in a way, it all comes from his loyalty to his family, to his roots. He wants to help other families like his—not just Latino families, but other hard-working, poor people. He's very loyal to that idea. I'm sure it's because he's so loyal to his family."

"Exactly," Donna said. "And if Josh is loyal to his family and his friends, Helen, he's ten times—ten thousand times—more loyal to his job, to the President he's serving. I've seen him with President Bartlet, and I see him with your husband, and I know there's nothing more important to him than supporting the President, than serving him the best he can. He'll do anything, give up anything—his health, his mind, his life, even—not to let the President down. But it's hard on him, Helen, to have to give up his friends. He doesn't have very many of them, and the ones he has matter a great deal to him. Toby's one of them."

"Matt didn't tell Josh he had to stop being friends with Toby, did he?" Helen asked, startled. She couldn't imagine her husband telling anyone to do that, no matter how angry he was. Though Matt had been very angry about Toby Ziegler; Helen still didn't entirely understand why he had been so angry, when it was President Bartlet Ziegler had betrayed, not him. If betrayal was even the right word for what Toby had done—there was a part of Helen that thought "salvation" was a better one.

"Not exactly. But I know he told Josh he couldn't talk to Toby about anything that happened at work, anything. And that's hard on Josh, Helen. Your husband is a young man to be the President, and Josh is a young man to be Chief of Staff. He can do it—he can absolutely do it—but it would be easier on him if he had people he could talk to about it sometimes, people with experience he can trust. And with Leo gone, who is there? He has Sam, of course—I'm so glad he has Sam. But Sam isn't as experienced as Josh is. There should be C.J., but she's made it clear she really wants to get away from the White House right now, and doesn't want to hear too much about it." And things were tricky between Josh and C.J., Donna thought, but didn't say. Very tricky. "And then—there should be Toby, but now Josh can't talk to him either, and that's hard."

"Surely Josh can see why he shouldn't be talking about White House matters to Toby Ziegler, Donna."

Helen felt a need to take her husband's part about something in this tangled mess he'd managed to make, and while she'd argued with Matt about Toby herself, she understood where Matt was coming from and was surprised that Donna wouldn't understand it, too.

"But what Josh talked to Toby about had nothing to do with what Toby had done," Donna protested, hearing her voice grow a little heated. "And just because Toby had leaked one secret doesn't mean he would do it again. That was—that was an extraordinary situation. Toby did it to save lives—to save those astronauts' lives."

Helen nodded.

"I know," she said. "I really don't understand why President Bartlet didn't just send that shuttle up right away. It seemed such an obvious thing to do."

"Exactly," Donna said, bitterly. "What good could a 'secret military shuttle' ever be, anyway? The whole point of a shuttle is to be able to use it more than once, but once you use it, it isn't secret anymore. There's nothing a military shuttle could do that couldn't be done another way—I've heard Jo—" She stopped, not wanting to say outright what Josh's views on the shuttle had been.

Helen nodded again.

"I know," she said. "The regular shuttle carries secret payloads all the time, anyway. Everyone knows that." It still baffled her that Matt was so furious with Josh for talking to Toby Ziegler, when Matt himself had thought at the time that Bartlet had made a bad call in not sending the military shuttle up as soon as the astronauts' need was known.

"And it wasn't just the astronauts' lives Toby saved—it was the entire space program! If they'd died, the country would have been outraged. NASA wouldn't have been able to get funding from Congress for the next twenty years. Toby's brother was an astronaut, and he had just died. What Toby did was—it was wrong, of course, he shouldn't have done it, but he'd never done anything like that before and I can't imagine him ever doing anything like that again. And Josh wasn't telling Toby anything when they talked about . Helens and about Dr. Kaplan's advice. Toby wasn't asking Josh to leak anything to him; he wouldn't—and if he had, Josh wouldn't have done it. Toby was trying to tell Josh something Josh needed to know, something the President needed to know. Toby knew Kaplan, knew his training, knew his career. He knew Kaplan was the man to listen to, and Josh knew he could trust Toby not to make that recommendation lightly. The President needed to listen to him. And if he had—"

"Matt feels terrible about what happened, Donna." That was one thing Helen was certain of. He wasn't talking to her about it, but she was quite certain that he was still feeling terrible about the lives that had been lost because he hadn't listened to Josh. She thought that might be why he was so acutely aware of Josh's moods now, and so worried about losing him.

"I'm sure he does. I'm sure he does. But not any worse than Josh. He couldn't possibly feel any worse about what happened than Josh does."

"It was Matt's call, Donna. Josh gave the advice; Matt didn't listen to it. I know Matt's apologized to Josh for that, told him he should have listened. It's Matt who has to bear the guilt of not having listened, of not having done what he could have to save people's lives. He'll always bear the guilt of that. I don't think you or Josh can really understand what that's like for him."

Donna looked at the First Lady helplessly. "Oh Helen," she said, a catch in her voice. "You really don't know Josh at all, do you?"

oooooo


	8. Chapter 8

Josh sat on the couch in his living room, his head tipped back, his eyes closed, one hand resting on the seat beside him. His phone was in it, but he hadn't used it yet. He was still in his overcoat, which he'd unbuttoned but hadn't gotten as far as taking off. He'd been sitting like that for a couple of hours, thinking, trying not to think . . . .

Finally he sat up. He scrubbed a hand wearily over his face and through his hair, then hunched himself forward a little and picked up the phone.

There were two calls he needed to make, but it was too late for one of them. He'd do that one in the morning—eight o'clock should be all right. But right now he had to make the other one. He wanted to and he didn't want to. He'd promised to make it, he'd been looking forward to it, but now that he was finally finished with this gruelling, exhausting day, he wasn't sure that he could bear to. He was either going to have to lie to her, which he hated to do and which rarely worked, anyway, or he was going to have to go through the whole humiliating business all over again, and he hated to have her know when he'd been humiliated. And it would hurt her—he knew it would hurt her, and he hated the thought of hurting her. But if he didn't call she would be worried, and if he didn't tell her now he'd have to eventually, and then she'd be hurt anyway, and angry with him for not telling her sooner, and really, there was just no good way out of this conversation at all.

It flicked across his mind to be angry with the man who had put him in this position, but he shut the thought out firmly, the way he always did. Matt Santos was the President, and it wasn't his fault that Charlie Young had loved Zoe Bartlet or that Zoe had loved him, it wasn't his fault that a gang of racist boys had been able to get guns when they wanted them, it wasn't his fault that Josh had taken a quick trip to the bathroom after President Bartlet's speech to a bunch of college kids and had come out of the building after the others to hear gunfire and run towards it. It certainly wasn't Matt Santos's fault that a little boy had wanted popcorn one winter night almost forty years ago when his parents were out, or that a young girl had left the burner on under the popcorn maker while her brother danced around her like the little clown he'd always been, waving her violin bow and making her chase him to get it back. Or that, standing in the back yard frozen with horror half an hour later, he'd forgotten every single thing they'd practiced at school for their fire safety unit—everything except the one thing he'd just done.

The biggest problem with getting diagnosed with PTSD, Josh sometimes thought, was the way all that therapy made you remember the things you'd almost managed to forget. He took a few more of the deep breaths he'd been working on for the last couple of hours, pushed the memories back again, and started to dial her cell.

oooooo

"Oh, Helen," Donna said, "you really don't know Josh at all, do you?"

The First Lady's face changed. "What do you—" she started, but at that moment small footsteps pounded down the hall and Miranda exploded into the room, crying frantically. Helen got up to soothe her and carry her back to bed. Just as she was leaving the room, Donna's cell phone rang.

When Helen got back, Donna wasn't sitting on the couch anymore but was standing by the fireplace, looking down at the embers glowing in the bed of grey, dusty ash.

"Sorry about that," Helen said, cheerfully. "She had a nightmare. Something about losing Blankie and Raggedy Old Pooh. Blankie was wrapped about her neck and Raggedy Old Pooh was right there in the bed; I don't know why she was so upset, unless it's just being in a new place. I should have expected it, really. I've put her down in my bed and told her I'd sleep beside her later on."

Donna tried to smile, but it didn't reach her eyes. They looked as if they were a million miles away. Or perhaps, Helen thought, just very tired. It was late, and they had both had a good deal to drink.

"I think I'll go to bed now, Helen," Donna said. Her voice sounded as worn out as her eyes looked. "It's been a great day, but . . ."

"Of course," Helen said, sympathetically. "You look exhausted."

Donna nodded.

"I am, I guess. I—" Her voice caught. She blinked, and looked back down at the fire. Helen realized suddenly that she was on the verge of tears.

"Donna," she said gently. "What's happened? Is something the matter?"

Donna shook her head, still looking at the fire, still looking as if she were blinking back tears.

"I'm—okay," she said. "Everything's—okay. I'm just—tired, I guess." Helen didn't believe a word of it.

"All right," she said, reluctantly. "Can I get you anything?"

"No thanks. I just want to get to bed."

"Okay. Good night, then." Helen watched as the younger woman made her way almost blindly across the room.

"Donna," she called out, just as Donna was opening the door.

"Yes, Helen?" Donna turned around, wearily.

"It was Josh calling, wasn't it? Just as I went out with Miranda?"

Donna looked at her for a long minute, then nodded, looking more worn out than before.

"Yes," she said, her voice barely audible. "Yes, it was Josh."

Helen looked back, weighing her various obligations as employer, hostess, wife and—though it was still new to her to think of Donna this way—friend. When was it better to make someone talk even though they didn't want to, and when was it better to leave them alone? She looked at the stiffness in the other woman's posture, the tiredness and—yes, she could see it now—the misery in her face. She thought about her own natural reticence, and how much like her Donna seemed to be that way. Then she thought about Matt, about his sleepless nights, about the tiredness—the exhaustion—in his face when he'd kissed her goodbye that morning. About the monumental responsibility he'd taken on when he'd put his hand on the Bible she'd held for him and said the words of the oath of office; about the people whose lives would depend on the decisions he would make, and about what he'd told her about his need to know his Chief of Staff better so he and Josh could work together better, about his fears that he was going to lose Josh and be left without the guidance and support he needed to do his job.

"Donna," she said finally, in the firmest tones she could summon up, not wanting her hesitation to show through, "what is it I don't understand about Josh?"

oooooo

Matt felt as if he were moving through a fog as he made his way up to the Residence, his agents trailing behind him. He couldn't stop replaying the scene that had just taken place in his office: Josh suggesting he should see a psychiatrist, Matt objecting, Josh trying to resign. When he thought about the things Josh had said—more, the things he had implied—Matt could feel his pulse quickening and his temper flaring even now. But at the same time, he was uncomfortably aware that he wouldn't have wanted a stranger to have heard his response—and while Josh was no stranger, he was a long way from being an old friend who could be trusted to understand, either. Someone who didn't know Matt well might have thought—God, Josh wouldn't have thought Matt was belittling the problems of veterans, would he? Matt was a vet himself; Josh should know he would never do that. It had been the other way around—it was partly because Josh had been exaggerating the importance of little things and trying to make them somehow equivalent to serious ones that he'd reacted the way he had. To say that a healthy man should see a psychiatrist when he was simply a little short of sleep was to trivialize the treatment and the conditions it was really needed for—to trivialize the very real trauma of the men and women who'd fought for their country under terrifying conditions and seen terrible things. Their suffering was real, and required real professional help. Matt's problems were nothing like theirs. Even the suggestion that he might need anything like the same kind of treatment they did was an insult to them—and to him, too.

Matt didn't say goodnight to his agents when he walked into the Residence, but closed the door behind him and stood in the middle of the spacious living room, looking around him. There were no lights on; the only illumination came from the windows, giving the room a greyish, otherworldly look. He hardly recognized it: he felt as if he was on a movie set, on a stage or in a dream, not in his own living room—this vast space with that dramatic, famous window at the end of it that he'd seen in so many photos and movies without ever imagining that it would one day be his. As much as anything here could really be said to be his. Normally he didn't question his right to this place, this job, but tonight all he could think was that surely this wasn't where he was supposed to be. He'd gotten onto the wrong elevator, stumbled into the wrong set of rooms. They seemed so wrong, so quiet, so empty. And they were quiet and empty, with Helen and the children gone. Matt hadn't spent a night here by himself before. He hadn't really thought about what it would be like, when she'd said she wanted to take the kids to Camp David for the weekend so they could get some fresh air and she could maybe get a chance to talk to Donna about the things Matt had been worrying about, about Josh . . . .

Josh. Matt had a sudden image of Josh's face as he offered, for the second time in as many weeks, to resign: it had been grey and drawn, like the face of an old man. Matt had no idea why Josh had reacted so strongly, though he had a vague, uneasy sense that he ought to be able to figure it out. But he couldn't seem to put one thought after another in a logical way anymore; all he could do was look around him at this living room and think vague, aimless thoughts about the Kennedys sitting for photographs in front of that window, and the Bartlets, and how the security lights outside made the room look as cold and grey as Josh's face. Ashen, Matt thought now—like the room, like everything around Matt these days, Josh had looked like he'd turned to ash.

And if that wasn't a crazy, irrational thought for the President of the United States to be wasting time on, Matt didn't know what would be. Maybe Josh was right, maybe he did need to see a shrink. But damn it—his temper flared hotly for a minute at the thought, then died back again. Or sleep. Maybe he just needed some sleep.

He forced himself to move. He walked through the dimly-lit rooms, feeling more and more tired with every step. By the time he reached their bedroom he was too far gone even to think about how empty it felt with Helen away. He dropped his clothes in a heap on the floor and all but fell onto the bed. He was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow.

oooooo

The two women sat facing each other, curled up like children on the big couch. The fire had died down, leaving only a few dusky, glowing coals. The room felt chilly without its warmth, but neither woman noticed, or reached for the Pendleton blankets that were draped invitingly across the cushions behind them.

"Oh Donna," Helen said at last, her voice a little choked. "Matt doesn't know that. I'm sure Matt doesn't know any of that. If he did, he would have understood . . . ."

Her voice trailed off. Donna stared at her in bewilderment.

"He must know," she said. "How could he possibly not know? It's all in Josh's security file."

oooooo


	9. Chapter 9

Matt woke to find sunlight filling the room. He blinked. He wasn't used to seeing sunlight when he woke up. Even after a good night he was usually up before dawn, and lately . . . . He rolled over, looked at the clock, and blinked again. That couldn't be right. That couldn't possibly be right.

"Stevie!" he shouted, pushing himself to a sitting position and then swinging his legs out of the bed. "Stevie!"

Stevie Harper, the President's bodyman, opened the door.

"Yes, sir?" he said politely.

"Stevie, what were you thinking of, letting me sleep in so late? I should have been up hours ago."

"Mr. Lyman told me not to wake you, sir."

"I was supposed to be meeting with Harrison—"

"Mr. Lyman took care of that, sir. He said you needed to sleep."

Matt shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck. He wanted to lash out at someone for treating him like a baby, but he didn't want to snap at Stevie. Or at Josh, he thought, remembering with a sinking feeling the scene in his office last night. Josh had tried to resign again. Somehow the very thing he'd most wanted to avoid had happened, and Josh had tried to resign again. Matt had refused to let him, of course, but he was going to have to sort out what had happened there. He couldn't let things get to that point again. A surge of anger welled up in him that Josh would have done that again. It felt like some kind of power game, like a kind of blackmail, almost. Except . . . .

Except that Matt was remembering now what Josh had said, and what he'd said, and how Josh had looked when he said it, and he knew Josh had been entirely serious and not playing games at all. And while he still felt a flicker of fury at what Josh had suggested, he also had a sinking feeling that perhaps his response had been less than ideal.

Matt sighed, and leaned against the window frame, stretching, then straightened up and stood still, looking out. He was still tired, but his head felt clearer than it had for a couple of days now. He really had needed that sleep; Josh had been right about that, at least. And perhaps Matt had been, if not wrong, then at least not as unquestionably right in his anger at Josh as he had wanted to believe last night. He could be more honest with himself this morning, and he had to admit that his outburst at his Chief of Staff had had very little to do with any conscious thoughts about veterans with PTSD and their entitlement to special treatment and respect, and a lot more to do with Matt's own pride and his need to be seen as strong and capable and in control, able to handle with ease the demands of his incredibly demanding job. And that was foolish. He'd never worried much before about what other people thought of him; he could hardly afford to start now. He'd told himself he could do this job, and he could. It really shouldn't matter what Josh Lyman thought of him. He needed Josh's advice, he'd told Helen he needed to understand the man and to have Josh understand him, but he didn't need Josh's admiration or approval to do the job Josh had persuaded him to run for. It was just that it had stung, to realize that a man whose life had always been smoothed and cushioned by class and money and Ivy League connections thought that Matthew Santos wasn't able to get through a few sleepless nights without running to a shrink to whine about it . . . .

"Mr. President, sir?"

"Yes, Stevie?"

"Mrs. Santos called, sir. She told me to tell you to call her as soon as you were up."

"Okay," Matt said, smiling a little. Then he frowned.

"Everything's okay up there, isn't it?" They'd have woken him if there'd been any problem, surely. But still . . . .

"Yes, sir. Mrs. Santos said she and the children were having a good time. But she wanted to talk to you as soon as possible."

"Okay," Matt said again. "I'll call her now."

He was just reaching for the phone when Stevie knocked on the door again.

"Mr. President? There's someone else on the line that you might want to talk to first."

"Who is it, Stevie?"

"Former President Bartlet, sir."

oooooo

"Good morning, Mr. President." Jed Bartlet's voice on the other end of the line was relaxed and jovial. In spite of his worries about last night and about Helen and her urgent need to talk to him, Matt smiled.

"I could say the same to you, sir. In the very same words."

"It's a club, you know. We could write letters in the nuclear codes and trade secret decoder rings. But please skip the title; that's a foolish formality. It's just Jed now. Certainly to you."

"In that case, you'd better call me Matt, sir."

The voice on the other end of the line laughed. "Oh, no," it said. "I had to put up with being Mr. President to everyone except my wife and daughters for eight years; you'll have to put up with it too, President Santos."

Matt shook his head a little, still smiling. "Surely Leo let up on you in private, didn't he?"

"Leo? He was the worst of the lot. My oldest friend, and he absolutely refused to call me anything but Mr. President and Sir, from the day I took office, till—" There was a pause, and then Jed went on in a softer voice. "I was really looking forward to hearing my name from him again."

"I'm so sorry, sir," Matt answered quietly. "I was really looking forward to working with him as my V.P. It's a great loss."

"Yes. It is. But Baker is a good man; you'll do well with him."

"Yes, we will, but still—Leo—I feel responsible, you know. If he hadn't had the strain of the campaign—"

"No," Jed said firmly. "Don't think that. Leo wasn't doing anything he didn't want to do; you could never get Leo to do anything he didn't want to do. He was having the time of his life."

"Thank you. That's good of you to say."

"It's the truth. It's what I've told Josh, more than once. He'll never really believe it, of course, but it's the truth just the same."

Josh. Matt stirred uncomfortably. He was trying to think what to say, when Bartlet continued.

"I was lucky to have Leo. I couldn't have managed without him those first years. But C.J. did a wonderful job when he had to step down. And Josh would have done a great job, too."

Josh again. Matt opened his mouth, but Bartlet seemed to be in a meditative mode on the other end of the line, and not inclined to give his successor time to say much at all.

"If Leo hadn't had other ideas, I would have asked Josh. But it's just as well I didn't; he would have done it, and then he wouldn't have gone looking for you."

Matt smiled a little. "I'm glad you didn't then, sir."

"Yes, it's a good thing I didn't. But I would have, you know; he's grown a lot over the last few years, and he would have done a fine job for me. As I'm sure he's doing a fine job for you."

"President Bartlet—"

"Jed."

"It's very nice to hear from you, of course, but—if you don't mind my asking—is there a particular reason why you called just now?"

Jed laughed quietly.

"You're not going to tell me you've got a meeting to get to? Your Chief of Staff told me you'd have some time this morning."

"You spoke to Josh first?"

"Actually, Josh spoke to me first. He asked if I'd talk to you about some of my experiences in the role you're occupying now. I said I'd be glad to. I know it can seem as if nobody else could ever understand what you're having to deal with, but in fact there are one or two other people still alive who do know what it's like."

Matt was silent.

"It's a pretty exclusive club we belong to, Mr. President, and we few members need to do our best to look out for each other. There are some things it's helpful to know and nobody else can tell you. The staff knows about some of them—Josh certainly does—but they don't feel comfortable telling the secrets of one President to another."

"Secrets, sir?" Matt said, wondering if they really were going to talk about the nuclear codes or Cracker-Jack-box decoder rings.

"There's a lot of stress involved in the job you've taken on, President Santos; a lot of stress. Difficult decisions that leave you wondering afterwards if you've done the right thing, and when lives are involved, a lot of guilt sometimes, too. We're both Catholics; we know a thing or two about guilt, don't we? Though we're not the only ones; the Jews know how to do it quite thoroughly, too. I have a pretty good idea what you've probably been going through these last couple of weeks. And I thought you should know what I did to help me deal with those kinds of feelings once. It was actually Toby Ziegler who told me what I needed to do, and I was pretty angry with him when he first suggested it . . . ."

oooooo

Matt sat in the chair by the window in his bedroom, the phone dangling from his hand. He was looking out at the heavy sky, the trees still brown and bare, the few straggling efforts at blossoms in the garden below. The morning light had a grey, filtered look, as it had every day since the volcano erupted, but for the first time in the past two and a half weeks it no longer struck him as making everything it touched look as if it was coated in a film of ash.

He felt better. There was no denying that he felt better than he had in days—in weeks, really. Possibly better than he had any time since his Inauguration. There was no denying that it had been very helpful to talk to someone who understood what he'd been having to deal with, who had been there himself and knew exactly what the burden of responsibility was like. Talking could never take that burden away, but it eased it. Perhaps what helped was simply the realization that he wasn't entirely alone.

And yet there was something still troubling him, something he hadn't felt able to share with Jed Bartlet, although he'd had the feeling several times during the conversation that Bartlet was creating opportunities for him to bring it up. Yesterday Matt would have rushed to the conclusion that Josh must have told Jed how strained the new President's relationship with his Chief of Staff had become. Today Matt was pretty sure he hadn't. But Jed Bartlet was a wise and experienced man, and had undoubtedly been able to glean a great deal from both Josh's manner and Matt's own, without either of them mentioning the difficulties they were having with each other at all.

Matt sighed. Perhaps he should have talked to Bartlet about it. Bartlet had said quite a bit about Josh, one way or another, some of it humorous, all of it complimentary. Bartlet clearly knew Josh in the ways Matt didn't. He had known Josh much longer than Matt had, of course, and Josh had been close to Leo, and Leo had been close to Jed. Leo . . . . Matt sighed again. Things might have been so different, if only Leo hadn't died. Leo would have told him things about Josh, helped him understand the man, and Matt would have felt less reluctance confiding in him about his new Chief of Staff than he did with Jed. It was odd that he could talk to the former President about how difficult he'd found the loss of life from the volcano disaster to deal with, and yet he couldn't quite bring himself to admit that he didn't know whether he really liked or trusted his new Chief of Staff, and was afraid his new Chief of Staff neither liked nor trusted him.

The phone in his hand rang. He saw the number and hit "Talk." Helen's voice came clearly out of it, ringing with exasperation.

"Matthew Santos," she said, "for goodness' sake, if you wanted to understand Josh Lyman, why didn't you read his security file?"

oooooo


	10. Chapter 10

"Josh."

Matt stood in the door that led from the Oval to his Chief of Staff's office. Josh looked up, startled, and stood at once.

"Mr. President."

Matt studied the face of the man in front of him. It looked a lot like the one he'd been seeing in the mirror every morning for the past week or so. Josh had made sure Matt had had a good night's sleep last night; he didn't look as if he'd had much himself. Knowing what he knew now, Matt wondered if Josh had really been getting any more sleep than he had since the volcano disaster. If that was the case, Josh had been handling it better, but perhaps the man was just more used to it; he had more reason to be.

Matt held up the thick file folder he'd brought with him.

"I just read this."

Josh went very still.

"Sir?"

"Your security folder, Josh. I hadn't looked at it before."

"Sir—I—I thought—I asked you—I told you—"

"You told me to read it, Josh. You reminded me about it several times. Don't worry; I remember."

Josh's face relaxed ever so slightly, but Matt could see the wariness in his eyes still.

"I'm afraid I ignored you," he continued. "Kazakhstan, the transition—you know how many other things there were to worry about. I had a lot on my mind; I didn't think I needed to spend time looking at what the F.B.I. and the Secret Service had to say about a man who'd had daily access to President Bartlet for more than seven years, and who only left the White House when he agreed to run my campaign."

"I'm sorry, sir." Josh hunched his shoulders a little. Matt could see the tension in every line of his body. "I should have sat down with you to discuss it. I should have made sure that you were aware of everything in there, that you understood the implications . . . ."

"Josh," Matt said quietly, but Josh didn't seem to hear him.

"I'm sorry, Mr. President," he continued, his face as grey and lined as it had been last night. "I should have done that. It's something I don't enjoy talking about, that I don't much like people knowing about, and I guess I find it hard to discuss. I knew I should be talking to you about it, but—I didn't want to have to, so I thought I could deal with it by letting you read the folder instead. It was an inexcusable omission. I'll start on my letter of resignation now."

"Josh," Matt said again, smiling a little to try to set Josh at ease, although there was nothing in the situation he found amusing, least of all his own part in it, "Josh, that's not necessary at all. As I think I've told you once or twice before, if you offer me your resignation, I won't accept it. I asked you to be my Chief of Staff because I couldn't think of a better man for the job. Nothing in this folder and nothing you've done or haven't done has changed my mind about that at all. And you don't have to apologize. It's I who should be apologizing to you. What I said to you last night was disgraceful. There's nothing for you to be ashamed of in having PTSD or having received psychiatric treatment for it. The best I can say for myself is that I was exhausted last night, and furious at the idea of your thinking that I wasn't handling the stress of my job well. You were right, of course—I wasn't. I don't think I have been for some time."

"Sir, the Presidency is an enormously stressful job. The responsibility, the pressures—no one, no matter how capable or how strong he is, can really be prepared for those. You've been doing a fine job, and I know you're going to do an even finer one—I wouldn't have asked you to run if I hadn't been convinced of that. But you can't do it entirely by yourself. You have to have people to lean on, people you trust. I want to be one of those people for you, but I don't know how much—I've been unsure all along how much you really trust me. I thought there might be someone else who could help you more than I can, a professional who's experienced in counseling people in highly stressful jobs, for instance, who knows how to talk to someone about the issues that come along with this kind of responsibility. I was never suggesting that you have any kind of—psychiatric disorder, or problem. You're just in a new situation with enormous responsibilities attached to it, and you need to figure out how to balance those with your own needs in—in an emotionally healthy way. It's not a weakness in this situation to want that kind of help. And it's been done before."

"Yes," Matt said. "Yes, Jed Bartlet told me that it had."

Josh smiled a little. "Did he call you, then?"

"This morning. I gather I have you to thank for that."

"I didn't tell him anything, sir, only that I thought you might find it helpful to talk to someone else who's sat at that desk in that office, and had to make some of the same kinds of decisions you're having to."

"It was helpful, Josh. Thank you for asking him."

"It's my job to try to make yours easier, sir. Even if that sometimes means making suggestions you don't like."

"I know that, Josh. I didn't remember it last night, but I do know that. I apologize again for what I said last night, and for making your job so difficult sometimes. I'm not an easy man to help, I'm afraid."

Josh smiled.

"That's all right, sir. I've been told I'm pretty difficult to help myself, sometimes."

Matt smiled too. Then he grew serious again.

"Josh," he said, "I don't want to intrude. But there are a couple of questions I need to ask you, now that I've finally read this folder."

"Of course, sir," Josh said, the lightness gone from his voice again. "Whatever you want to discuss."

"Do you mind if I sit down?" the President waved at one of the armchairs in the room. Josh looked startled.

"Of course not. You don't have to ask me for permission, sir."

"Come and join me."

"Of course, sir."

Josh sat down awkwardly across from the President. He wasn't used to talking to Matt in his own office instead of in the Oval or one of Matt's private ones, here or, occasionally, upstairs in the Residence. Matt leaned forward, cleared his throat, and gestured to the file.

"It says here that you haven't had a major episode of PTSD—a flashback—for several years. Is that right?"

"That's right, sir. The records are all there. I've kept them up to date."

"Have you had any other effect from the condition that you've had to deal with since I've known you? Since we took office, especially?"

Josh shrugged.

"There are effects I deal with all the time, sir. They're more pronounced at some times than at others. I know how to handle them; they don't affect my performance on the job. Or at least, that's what I think. Several top psychiatrists have agreed with me; you'll find their reports in that folder."

"Yes," Matt said. "I read those. I know PTSD is considered incurable—you can learn how to manage it but you're never going to be entirely free from it, or that's what medical science believes now. It's a stress disorder, so you suffer from increased stress reactions, of course, which you handle with a combination of medication and relaxation techniques. But it can't be pleasant to deal with, and I imagine it takes quite a toll on you, physically and emotionally; I know what the stress I've been under has felt like, and I certainly don't have PTSD. I'm sure you know how to handle it. I didn't ask about it because I was worried about your ability to do the job; I'm not. I was really wondering what kind of hell I've managed to put you through over the past year or so, and especially the last couple of weeks. It's occurred to me that I've asked an awful lot of you, and I haven't always been exactly considerate about the way I've asked it."

Josh flushed.

"This is a job I wanted to do, sir. You haven't asked anything from me that I haven't been prepared to do."

"I know that, Josh. And I'm grateful for it—that's something I don't say often enough, how grateful I am for everything you've done for me, and everything you're still doing. But there are limits, or there should be. If you suffer from a stress disorder, I should have been taking that into account, instead of letting you work yourself into the ground, first on the campaign and then during the transition. I don't want you ending up having a heart attack, Josh, or a stroke, either now or after we leave office."

"I can do the work, sir."

"I know you can. But I can be a little more considerate about the way I treat you when you're doing it. Can you honestly tell me that you haven't been having any kind of stress reaction to the way I handled that business about the volcano, or the way I've been barking at you for the last couple of weeks since?"

Josh looked down and scuffed at an imaginary spot on the carpet with his foot.

"I—sir—"

"Can you, Josh? I know you didn't lie to me about Dr. Kaplan or Toby Ziegler; don't start now, please."

Josh looked up, then away.

"No, sir," he said, almost inaudibly. "I can't say that. But that's part of my job. I can deal with it."

"You shouldn't have to, damn it, Josh! It shouldn't be part of your job; it doesn't have to be. And I'm going to make sure it isn't in the future, even if that means humbling myself enough to take your advice and talk to someone professional about the stress I've been feeling myself. Although, to be honest, I think President Bartlet might have been the professional I really needed to talk to most."

Josh looked up and smiled a little then.

"I'm glad, sir," he said. "I thought he might help."

"You thought right. He said I could call him any time; I think I'll take him up on it. But Josh—"

"Yes, sir?"

"My behavior isn't the only reason you've been under a lot of stress these past two weeks, is it?"

Josh looked away again.

"What do you mean, sir?"

"Sam told you about the child, didn't he? About the mother we saw at the Red Cross shelter out in Washington, whose daughter had inhaled ash and died?"

Josh looked back and met the President's eyes, uncomfortably.

"Yes, sir. He thought I should know that you'd been—distressed about it."

"I was. I was very distressed about it. I still am. I'm a father; I have a son and a daughter. And if anything ever happened to Miranda or Peter . . . ."

"Yes, sir. I understand, sir."

"Yes, you do, don't you, Josh? But—I'm almost ashamed to admit this—I didn't think you did. I didn't think you could."

"You don't have to have children to care about them, sir."

"No, of course, you don't. That wasn't what I meant, though."

"What did you mean, sir?"

"I'm afraid I've been guilty of making assumptions, Josh. Assumptions about you, because I don't really know you very well—about your life, based on the kind of life I just assumed someone who grew up where you did and went to the schools you did and had a father who worked for the law firm yours did would have had. I should know better than that, but I didn't."

"I'm not sure I'm quite following you, sir."

"President Bartlet wasn't the only person I talked to this morning, Josh. Helen called, too. It seems she and Donna spent last night getting drunk and talking about us."

"Oh, no." Josh leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes in horror that was only partly mock. "This can't be good."

"No, it's probably pretty bad, but it was bound to happen sooner or later, you know. I don't know what Helen said about me—you can get that out of Donna when you see her this afternoon—but Donna told her a few things about you that made some parts of the psychiatrists' reports I read in your security file make a lot more sense than they would have otherwise."

Josh opened his eyes, any trace of amusement gone. He glanced up into Matt's dark, sympathetic ones and flicked his own away again, looking out the window, then down at the carpet, then out the window again.

"I didn't know about your sister, Josh. I'm sorry I didn't."

"That's all right, sir," Josh said softly. "It was a long time ago."

"She died of smoke inhalation?"

Josh nodded, still looking out the window.

"When Helen told me about that, and I read those reports, and thought about what Sam must have told you about that business at the shelter in Washington, I realized that you've probably had a lot more to deal with than I have, these past two weeks. And I'm sorry, Josh. I just wanted to tell you that I'm sorry. I'm sorrier than I can say that I didn't take your advice and listen to Dr. Kaplan; I'm desperately sorry that that woman's daughter died because of it; and I regret deeply that I haven't been more sensitive to what you must have been feeling about that, too. It wasn't your fault, Josh. It was my call, not yours, and I made the wrong one. You did everything you could have to try to convince me to do what I should have done; there wasn't anything you left out, anything you should have done differently. If it's anybody's fault it's mine, not yours. I hope you know that."

Josh dropped his head for a minute, then looked back at the man in front of him.

"If I'd told you how I'd heard about Dr. Kaplan, sir—if I'd told you from the start that Toby had recommended him—and hadn't left you to find that out by yourself, if that hadn't taken you by surprise at a bad moment—would that have made a difference?"

Matt looked into his Chief of Staff's face and saw everything there that he'd been afraid he would. And he'd thought he'd had a bad couple of weeks. He kicked himself mentally, hard, for putting a man like Josh, with his unique vulnerabilities, through what he'd obviously been through recently.

"Honestly, Josh? No, I doubt it would have. I'd have gotten steamed up about Toby Ziegler and stayed that way no matter when I found out; I wasn't prepared to be rational on the subject at all. And that's something else I've got to apologize for—that, and that tirade I treated you to about lies of omission. Helen gave me a good blast about all that, too—I guess Donna told her about it. You can't possibly tell me everything, Josh, I do realize that. There's no reason you should have told me that Ziegler had recommended Kaplan, and I had no business to call you a liar over it. Quite frankly, I'm surprised you didn't hand me your resignation then and there and refuse to take no for an answer."

"I wouldn't do that, sir. I serve at the pleasure of the President: as long as you want me working for you, I'll be there working for you. You can count on that."

"Thank you, Josh. That's important to me. I realized a couple of things last night, and while I was talking to Jed Bartlet this morning, and that was one of them: I realized how much I need to know that I can depend on you. Helen's kept asking me why I was on such a rampage about Toby Ziegler, when at the time of the incident I'd thought Bartlet should have sent that shuttle up as soon as it was needed—it was useless as a military weapon anyway, and it didn't give us any real capabilities we didn't have in other forms already. But even if it hadn't been, I thought it was wrong not to use it to save lives."

"I won't talk to Toby about anything that goes on here, sir. I told you I wouldn't, and I won't."

"It wasn't about Toby, Josh. That's what I realized this morning. What I was angry about was never really about Toby Ziegler at all."

"I don't understand, sir."

"Don't you? It was about you, Josh. It was about the fact that I don't know you the way I need to. I don't know you the way Jed Bartlet knew Leo, I don't even know you the way Bartlet knew Toby Ziegler, and at some level, I was afraid that one day I'd wake up and find you'd turned on me the way I thought Ziegler had turned on him."

Josh's eyes went wide.

"I would never do that, sir. Never. You have my absolute word of honor—"

"It's all right, Josh," Matt said, waving his hand in the air a little as if to clear it. "I don't need it. I know you wouldn't. I had a long talk with Bartlet this morning. He said you don't leave people. He told me a bit about what you said to him when you left the White House to come to work for me, about how hard that was for you, and how, if he hadn't been prepared to give you his blessing, he didn't think you could have done it. And he said some other things too, things about Ziegler and what he thought the man was trying to do and why; and basically, if he can forgive Toby Ziegler and say that leak isn't something the man would do again, I guess I can too."

"President Bartlet said he knew Toby wouldn't do it again?"

"He said he knew Toby had just lost his astronaut brother, and he thought that had a lot to do with it. He said he'd realized that Toby was trying to save the astronauts and the space program and maybe the world from broken treaties and the militarization of space. And he said he'd come to realize that Toby was also trying to save him."

"Toby was trying to save President Bartlet?" Josh looked puzzled.

"From himself, Bartlet said, or something like that. He said he's glad now Toby did it. He doesn't know why he didn't make that choice himself, and he's glad he doesn't have to be living with the regrets he knows he'd have about it, with those men's lives on his conscience now. He said it took him a while to get around to seeing things that way—that he almost didn't sign Toby's pardon, he was still so angry with him for going behind his back like that—but that a few months' retirement had done wonders for his sense of perspective."

Josh smiled.

"I'm—that's wonderful, sir. That's the best news I've heard in a long time."

"Apparently Abbey helped. And the season."

"The season?" Josh asked, sounding pleased but confused.

"Lent, Josh. Apparently Abbey told President Bartlet he should try giving up self-righteousness for Lent."

Josh actually threw back his head and laughed.

"That sounds like Mrs. Bartlet," he said. "She never puts up with any guff from anybody, not even the President."

"Helen told me something remarkably similar this morning, Josh: she told me to stop being such an ass, thinking I can't trust anyone unless I know them like an old friend, and I can't get to know anyone as a new friend because I'm the President now and I can't afford to let anyone think I'm less than perfect. She told me it was obvious to everyone that I was a lot less than perfect anyway, and the longer I went on trying to pretend anything different, the more obvious it would be."

"And I thought only Donna said things like that. Donna, and Abbey Barlet."

"Donna, and Abbey, and Helen—they're three women who don't mince words."

"I don't want to think about what Donna's going to tell me to do for Lent, sir."

"You're lucky you're Jewish; she can't tell you to do anything for Lent."

"I'm lucky she's Protestant, you mean; if she told me I had to do something for Lent I'd probably have to do it, Jewish or not, but those church calendar things aren't really a part of her world view. Or they haven't been, up till now."

"Watch out, Josh. If she spends much more time drinking with Helen, her world view may change."

"Or Helen's will. I mean, Mrs. Santos's, sir."

"She'd like you to call her Helen, Josh. You know, I've been trying to think how to say this without sounding like a high-school girl, but—there's something else I've realized over the past couple of weeks, Josh, that I wanted to say."

"What's that, sir?"

"There's one other professional I want to be able to talk to, even more than to Jed Bartlet. But I don't want to talk to him just as a professional; I want—I need—to be able to talk to him as something more than that. I need to be able to talk to him as a friend."

"I don't understand, sir. What are we talking about?"

"You, Josh. We're talking about you. You're a consummate professional, and I'm more grateful than I can say for your willingness to do this job and give me your professional advice. But I've realized over the past couple of weeks that I need more from you than that. I need—" Matt stopped. It was hard to put into words exactly what he needed from Josh; everything that came to mind made him sound like a sap. But Helen had told him to cut the crap and just tell Josh straight out what he wanted from him and not worry so damn much about sounding like a candy-ass, because Josh wasn't going to think he was one, he was going to understand and he was going to be pleased.

"I want—I need a friend, Josh. I need you to be for me what Leo was for Jed Bartlet—a brilliant Chief of Staff, which you already are, but also a trusted friend. I don't think I can do this job without that. And there isn't anyone I'd rather have beside me, not just as my Chief of Staff but as my friend, than you."

Josh flushed again, more hotly than before.

"Thank you, sir," he said, his voice a little thick with emotions that took him by surprise. "I'd be honored to call myself your friend."

"And I'd be honored to call you mine, Josh," Matt answered, smiling with genuine relief. If there was a little reserve in Josh's face still, a little caution in his eyes, that was hardly to be wondered at. But there was less than there had been. It was a beginning. "Thank you. And to that end, let's see how quickly we can get through today's business and get up to Camp David, so we can break open a couple of bottles of beer in front of the t.v. like good friends should. The Astros are playing this afternoon."

"We're pretty much done, sir. I took care of Harrison earlier this morning. We'll have him on board as long as we just . . . ."

And the two men started to walk together towards the garden, where Marine One was waiting to take them away for a weekend that was looking as though it might be a lot more relaxing than anything either of them would have anticipated just a few hours before.

oooooo


	11. Chapter 11

The children heard the helicopter first, and ran to see it land. Donna and Helen hurried after them and grabbed their hands to keep them a safe distance back. Donna could tell as soon as Josh appeared on the stairway, his backpack over his shoulder, that something had changed. He looked tired, she thought—with her gone he'd probably managed to get even less sleep last night than usual—but he looked better, too, less tense, more relaxed—happier, she decided. He gave her a grin that melted her heart from twenty feet away, and crossed the distance between them with a bound, throwing his arms around her and kissing her hard and long without the slightest trace of embarrassment. Beside them Helen and the President were embracing, too, and the children were hanging off their father and swinging themselves around as if he was their own personal swingset and jungle gym combined.

Josh came up from the kiss still grinning.

"Hey," he said. "Did you miss me?"

Donna smiled at him, too breathless to think of a snappy reply.

"I did," was all she could manage, and how lame was that? But the way his dimples deepened made it impossible to care.

"I missed you, too," he said tenderly, brushing a strand of hair back from her face and looking into her eyes in a way that made her knees turn to jelly and her thoughts turn to the cabin Helen had helped her take her things over to that morning. It was a particularly nice cabin, with a big, old fieldstone fireplace, a basketful of dry kindling and logs, and a very large and soft and comfortable-looking bed, draped in layers of patchwork quilts and Indian blankets, and looking as if it would provide a very warm and cozy nest on a cold and rainy night. It was starting to rain again now, fine, light droplets making a mist in front of her eyes and condensing on Josh's face and hair. But she didn't mind, she thought, as long as he was here, happy and safe beside her. The rain was almost a plus, really, when they had that snug and inviting cabin to go to, with that warm and inviting bed . . . .

As if he could read her thoughts, President Santos called out,

"Donna, that man is tired—I don't think he sleeps when you're not there. Go show him where you two are going to be tonight, and see if you can get him to get a couple of hours down-time. But make sure to have him back in the lodge before the afternoon is over; there's an Astros game he and I are going to watch. We're planning to have a few beers and talk about the really important things, like baseball."

"And women," Josh said, with another dimpled grin. "We're going to talk about women."

"Women, huh?" Donna said, pulling back a bit and frowning at him with mock severity.

"Our women," Josh said serenely, ignoring the scowl that earned him. "After all, that's what you guys do to us."

"We guys get together and talk about women? About _your _women? Josh, you are so seriously confused—"

"That he needs you to get him unconfused," the President said, laughing. "Go along, you two. There's lunch if you want it, but otherwise I'll see you for the game, Josh. It'll be a pretty long game; you can take your time. You really do need some sleep."

"Sleep's not what I need," Josh whispered in Donna's ear, as she led him away.

"Oh? What else did you have in mind?"

"I don't really think I could find the words to describe it. You'll just have to wait and see."

Hours later, after Josh had pulled himself reluctantly away from Donna to go and watch a baseball game, and after the game was over, and dinner, and Josh had surprised everyone—even Donna—by playing "Heart and Soul" with Peter on the big piano in the living room and then teaching Miranda how to play it too, and after Blankie had been lost and found and lost again, and finally wrapped around Miranda's neck and sent to bed with her and Raggedy Old Pooh, and after Josh and Donna had said goodnight to the President and his wife and had shivered their way through the surprisingly cold night air to the cozy little cabin that was waiting for them, the fine, grey drops of rain began to change. Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, they grew thicker and softer. Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, they began to leave brushstrokes of white across the muddy ground.

Hours later still, Matt Santos propped himself up on an elbow and looked out the window of his bedroom. The curtains were only partly drawn, and in the light from the security spotlights outside he could see the white flakes drifting silently down. He was so startled that he got up to take another look. Snow in April, he thought: I had no idea it could snow in April in Maryland. But this was in the mountains; it wouldn't be snowing back in D.C. He stood there watching as the shimmering, soft stuff settled on the trees and the ground. Even after his years in Washington as a Congressman, the Texan in him hadn't gotten over his wonder at the sight of snow. It always seemed magical to him. It changed everything, made everything feel, for the moment at least, peaceful and pure and fresh and new.

That was an illusion, Matt knew. The snow would be gone in a day or so, leaving plenty of mud on the ground to slog through, but that sense of newness still seemed wonderful to him. It was what he had been wanting so badly: a clean slate, a fresh start. It didn't change anything that had happened, and it didn't mean he wasn't going to have to work damn hard to do better in the future, of course. He knew it was going to take a lot more than a confession and a few words of absolution from his priest before he could ever let himself off the hook for those deaths in Washington State; he would be working every day, every hour for the next four years, or maybe eight, to make sure he never let anything like that happen so needlessly again. And he knew it was going to take more than an apology and a few beers in front of a baseball game to build a real friendship with his Chief of Staff; he was going to have to work at that, too, every day. It would be hard sometimes: it was so easy to forget, in a position like the one he had now, that the people who supported him were only human too, with weaknesses and vulnerabilities he needed to go easy on and work around at times, as well as the amazing strengths he leaned on every day. No, remembering that wasn't always going to be easy. But Matt had never been afraid of hard work: he just needed to be pointed in the right direction sometimes, and then he could take on any challenge . . . .

He stood by the window for a long time, watching the snow falling, feeling again that sense of possibility and conviction that had so eluded him for the past few weeks. When he finally turned away and settled himself back into bed beside Helen, he fell asleep again more easily than he had in a long time, snowflakes drifting through his sleepy thought like a benediction.

In the little cabin just a short walk from the lodge, Josh woke in the night, too. He didn't get out of bed, though, or look out the window at the snow. He turned himself over and gazed at the woman sleeping next to him—at the curve of her throat, the fine line of the bones in her cheek, the soft, light wave of her hair spread over the pillow—and felt overcome with wonder that she was there beside him. He wanted to kiss her but he didn't want to wake her, so he just lay there quietly, watching her. After a minute she reached sleepily over without opening her eyes, found his hand and pulled it close to her, settling it against her breast. He buried his head in her neck then and kissed it softly, over and over, until they both drifted comfortably back to sleep.

In Washington that night it was wet and cold, and the weathermen on the t.v. and the taxi-drivers and their passengers and anyone else who was awake were all wondering what this weather was doing to the cherry blossoms and when it was going to stop. But in the log-built lodge and the little cabin tucked snugly away in the blue foothills of the Catoctins, nobody minded it at all.

oooooo

oooooo


End file.
